Melania Trump blasts Vanity Fair for 'shameful' story claiming she never wanted to be first lady
- Melania Trump denied a report that she never wanted to be first lady.
- She has largely avoided the spotlight since her husband's election.
Melania Trump pushed back against a report that she never wanted to be first lady.
Vanity Fair published a lengthy story on Sunday examining Trump's relatively low-key tenure as first lady. The piece describes Trump's apprehension to being first lady, her skeletal East Wing staff, and relatively opaque relationship with President Donald Trump.
"This isn't something she wanted and it isn't something he ever thought he'd win," a longtime Trump friend told the magazine. "She didn't want this come hell or high water. I don't think she thought it was going to happen."
In a statement on Monday, the first lady's office pushed back on the piece.
"Once again part of the liberal media, this time Vanity Fair, has written a story riddled with unnamed sources and false assertions," a spokesperson said in a statement. "As a magazine tailored to women it is shameful that they continue to write salacious and false stories mean to demean Mrs. Trump, rather than focus on her positive work as First Lady and a supportive wife and mother. As has been stated on the record many times before, she is honored by her role."
Trump has largely avoided the spotlight since the inauguration.
The first lady avoided appointing a chief of staff for months after Trump's election, and didn't move into the White House until five months into the presidency, leaving staffers in the East Wing of President Barack Obama's White House little to do during the presidential transition.
The first lady has taken up fighting cyberbullying as her project, an irony that wasn't lost on Vanity Fair or other presidential observers, given the president's pugilistic instincts.