Model Melanie Marden has revealed that she has been receiving death threats since playing FLOTUS in T.I.’s freshly released video, in which she is wearing Melania Trump’s now-infamous “I really don’t care, do U?” jacket before starting to strip for the rapper in the Oval Office.
“Somebody was going to hit me with their car. Somebody was going to take a baseball bat to me. Somebody wished me to get raped and then killed,” Marden told “Inside Edition.”
The Melania lookalike went on to say that, in her mind, there was no reason for the first lady to be outraged:
“The first lady’s husband does a lot of bullying himself. So they’ve got some thick skin. If I was insulting her and degrading her, then it would be one thing, but I don’t think I was.”
The Canadian model explained that she had no intention of making a political statement by taking part in the Atlanta-born musician’s clip:
“It was an opportunity for me to step right outside my comfort zone and play the first lady – yes, naked, which I’ve never done before,” she revealed.
Marden ultimately gave a sneak peek into her upcoming project – this time with her clothes on and mimicking Melania’s accent.
Social media users went bananas over her interview, with many saying that the first lady’s reaction was “faux outrage,” as they’d already seen Melania naked after her old modeling pictures surfaced during the 2016 election campaign:
Others suggested that the clip was a “tasteless farce” and blasted the Canadian model:
Some were stunned to learn about the death threats the woman in the video has been receiving:
Once T.I.’s video was unearthed, Stephanie Grisham, spokeswoman for the first lady, dismissed it as unacceptable and “disgusting” and called for a boycott of the rapper.
The developments came shortly after Melania Trump, who’s been promoting her anti-cyberbullying initiative, “Be Best,” revealed in an interview with ABC that she believed she was the “most bullied person in the world.”