Here are the best jokes about the ‘fake Melania Trump’ conspiracy theory
Some people think the First Lady has been replaced by a body double.
There’s a wild conspiracy theory people really want to believe: that Melania Trump has been replaced with a fake.
It’s honestly not the most complex of theories, and seems mostly to centre around a large pair of sunglasses and a seemingly innocuous sentence uttered by her husband President Donald Trump, but it’s captured the imagination of a lot of people.
It kicked off on October 13, on Facebook, which during the US election became a breeding ground for conspiracies.
It’s unclear whether the initial post was meant as a joke, but people in the comments certainly took it seriously – and the post has gone on to receive over 100,000 shares. It features this video.
The claim was then posted to Twitter by @JoeVargas, with a clip of Melania standing next to the president in which Trump said: “My wife Melania, who happens to be right here”.
Vargas wrote: “This is not Melania. Mind blowing.”
After the story was picked up by US media outlets, Vargas took to Twitter to claim he’d received death threats, and reassert that he was being serious.
“Idc what the news says. That clip was not Melania Trump and I’m serious. If she showed up later, cool. She was prob late. Don’t be dumb,” he wrote.
Vargas’s original post has received over 50,000 retweets at the time of writing, and he’s used the virality well – to promote his online “legal meds” store. So you make your own mind up about that.
Nonetheless, some people were willing to believe the theory, despite there being a host of other pictures from that day showing a person who is very clearly Melania.
In the end, maybe it’s those who choose not to believe that are the real losers here.
