Resurfaced Video of Melania Trump Watching Ballerinas Dance is As Weird As It Gets

Christmas at the White House has always been a grand affair, but Melania Trump ’s first holiday season as First Lady left people both amused and confused. A video from Christmas of 2017 captured her standing awkwardly close to two ballerinas as they performed in the White House Grand Foyer. The dancers twirled to Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker while Melania stood stoically with her arms at her side, betraying no emotion. The sight of her expressionless demeanor quickly drew attention online, with some deeming the scene bizarre.

Eventually, she managed to whip out a faint smile. Contrary to her standoffish appearance, on social media, she expressed excitement about the holidays. She penned, “The President, Barron , and I are very excited for our first Christmas in the White House. As with many families across the country, holiday traditions are very important to us. I hope when visiting the People’s House this year, visitors will get a sense of being home for the holidays.” That year she picked the theme Time-Honored Traditions to celebrate 200 years of festive White House history, as reported by Glamour .

The decorations included an 18-foot Balsam, fir adorned with state seals, a 350-pound gingerbread house, and over 53 Christmas trees. Volunteers spent 1,600 hours transforming the space, while visitors were elated with festive activities like building gumdrop trees and crafting garlands. Behind the scenes, however, things were not so merry. Private recordings of Melania released in 2020, taped by her former confidante, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, featured the First Lady venting over the intense scrutiny she faced as First Lady, particularly over Christmas preparations .

“I am working…my ass off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right?” Melania was heard in one of the clips. She seemed ticked off over being labeled complicit in her husband Donald Trump ’s policies, including the controversial separation of migrant children at the southern border. She exclaimed, “I am working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, ‘Oh, what about the children that they were separated?’ Give me a f**king break.” She emphasized that she had tried to reunite families but was constrained by legal processes, as reported by The Guardian .

The tapes also revealed her stance on migrants’ claims of hardship . Melania insinuated that some were coached to seek asylum. The recordings sparked backlash. Wolkoff, who released the tapes as part of a tell-all memoir, defended her decision, citing fallout from her firing and accusations of financial impropriety during Trump’s inauguration planning. Stephanie Grisham, spokeswoman for Melania at the time, slammed Wolkoff over her actions. She said, “Secretly taping the First Lady and willfully breaking a [non-disclosure agreement] to publish a salacious book is a clear attempt at relevance.”