Fake News: Melania Trump Did NOT Announce Divorce

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Melania Trump Did NOT Announce Divorce

Did Melania Trump announce she is divorcing President Donald J. Trump? Although there have been rumors about marital troubles in the presidential household no formal announcements have been made and any article you may encounter that claims the announcement has been made can be regarded as fake news.

The most recent example is an article published by "PoliticsFocus" on March 18, 2018 titled "MELANIA TRUMP DIVORCE ANNOUNCEMENT" (archived here) which opened:

Rumors are swirling that Melania Trump will soon follow in Vanessa Trump's footsteps and file for divorce from her husband as well...

Vanessa filed for divorce from Donald Trump Jr. on Thursday in a move that was supported by her step-mother-in-law Melania. Now, a source close to Melania is saying that she's thinking about divorcing President Donald Trump as well!

"Melania is curious about what type of reaction the American people will have regarding Vanessa being brave enough to move away from the powerful family. Melania is strongly considering her own divorce, an unprecedented move with a sitting president. Like Vanessa, Melania has serious trust issues as well as major disagreements over policy. But it's the President's tweeting and online bullying Melania really can not stand," the source told Hollywood Life.

The entire article is basically a copy paste job from a Hollywood Life article claiming to have "a source close to Melania" that said:

"Melania is curious about what type of reaction the American people will have regarding Vanessa being brave enough to move away from the powerful family. Melania is strongly considering her own divorce, an unprecedented move with a sitting president. Like Vanessa, Melania has serious trust issues as well as major disagreements over policy. But it's the President's tweeting and online bullying Melania really can not stand,"

While we can't even be sure this quote is accurate because we don't know who this supposed source is we can say for sure there has been no "announcement" through official channels like the White House Press Office about any such divorce. Melania Trump hasn't tweeted about it either.

Before believing and sharing any rumor like this, always check official sources first. Generally you also shouldn't believe anything from a site that has a different name in the header compared to the domain name. In this case the domain is goldpolitics.com while the header says PoliticsFocus. The same website also appears under about a dozen other domain names:

  • anypolitical.com
  • cloudpolitical.com
  • jetpolitics.com
  • maxrepublican.com
  • politicsbee.com
  • politicsfocus.com
  • politicsmate.com
  • politicstec.com
  • politicsvision.com
  • sunrepublican.com

This is a typical technique used by fake news sites called "domain hopping": it is a tactic to try and stay ahead about filters and blocklists. Don't fall for it!

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

About Us

International Fact-Checking Organization Meta Third-Party Fact Checker

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

Lead Stories is a:


@leadstories

Subscribe to our newsletter

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Lead Stories LLC:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Most Read

Most Recent

Share your opinion