Vogue renews feud with Melania Trump, mocks official first lady portrait

Brian Niemietz, New York Daily News on Jan 29, 2025

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Melania Trump is back in the White House, but she still isn’t on the same page as Vogue, which mocked the first lady’s official portrait as tacky.

“Indeed, Trump looked more like she was guest starring on an episode of ‘The Apprentice’ than assuming the role of first lady of the United States,” Anna Wintour’s fashion mag wrote in an editorial, describing the photo of Melania sporting a Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo jacket over a white button-up and cummerbund.

“The choice to wear a tuxedo — as opposed to a blazer or blouse — made Trump look more like a freelance magician than a public servant,” Vogue added. “It’s perhaps unsurprising that a woman who lived in a gold-encrusted penthouse, whose fame is so intertwined with a reality-television empire, would refuse to abandon theatrics — even when faced with 248 years of tradition.”

Vogue’s beef with Melania, who did some modeling work before meeting her future husband around 1998, began when President Donald Trump was first elected to office in 2016. While most first ladies are asked to pose for the prestigious magazine, Melania didn’t appear in its glossy pages.

She was recorded expressing her disappointment to a friend in 2018 when Beyoncé was reportedly given creative control over that year’s September issue cover story. The 45-year-old Slovenian immigrant also complained that porn star Stormy Daniels — who allegedly had an affair with Trump when he was a civilian in 2006 — appeared in Vogue in 2018.

“I don’t give a f— about Vogue,” Melania was recorded telling her former advisor Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.

Former First Lady Dr. Jill Biden was featured in a August 2024 Vogue cover story that came out shortly before her husband withdrew from the presidential race following a historically weak debate performance against Trump. It was her third time appearing on the magazine’s cover. Her predecessor, Michelle Obama, was also on the cover three different times while Barack Obama was in office.

Melania was photographed for the magazine in 2005 as “Donald Trump’s New Bride” when he was still a reality TV star. She wore a Christian Dior wedding gown valued at around $200,000.

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