Actress Melanie Marden received death threats after rapper T.I. posted a video of her impersonating first lady Melania Trump, naked, seducing him in the Oval Office. The trolling has not stopped Marden, who on Friday responded by posting a video on Instagram in which she played Trump again, and uttered the first lady's anti-bullying campaign name, "Be Best."
In the video, Marden takes off an olive green jacket and wearing a buttoned up dark coat, says in a Slovenian accent: Music and art should unite us. I'd like to address some of the responses I've had. Yes I was naked, but I've been naked before. For those of you who love my husband, I love him too, but there is no need for death threats. Life is short. Relax. And be kind."
Marden concludes: "Be best. God bless America, and Russia, and the Trumps."
Her video had more than 6,000 views by Saturday morning.
Marden told Hollywood Life on Friday that "someone threatened to hit me with a baseball bat, hit me with their car. Another said, 'I hope you get raped then killed.'"
The actress also faced backlash from the White House for the original video earlier this month in which she stripped off Trump's infamous "I Really Don't Care, Do U?" olive green jacket. T.I. tweeted the video addressing President Donald Trump with, "Dear 45, I'm no Kanye," a slight against Kanye West who has expressed overwhelming support for the president.
Melania Trump's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham on Twitter called for a boycott of the video, and the first lady retweeted the post. Last Tuesday, Grisham stated, "It's disrespectful and disgusting to portray her this way simply because of politics."
The first lady in a sit-down interview with ABC News said, "I could say I'm the most bullied person in the world," and, "that's why my 'Be Best' initiative is focusing on social media and online behavior." She clarified: "One of them, if you really see what people are saying about me. And sometimes, you know, people would not say to you face to face, but they hiding behind the keyboards."
Melania Trump was mocked for bad grammar in "Be Best" when she launched the campaign in May. Critics also bashed her for choosing to combat cyberbullying in light of her husband's regular, offensive tweets slamming his opponents, and his campaigns of slurs and insults against anyone he feels is insufficiently deferent.
Despite scrutiny, the first lady has brought her campaign centered around wellness for children to London and several countries in Africa.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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A Los Angeles native, Jessica Kwong grew up speaking Spanish, Cantonese and English, in that order. Her journalism career started ... Read more
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