Does a viral image show a real Vanity Fair cover for a "special collector's edition" issue featuring Melania Trump and the headline "The American Queen"? No, that's not true: No such cover appears among the archived covers of the magazine and there have been no recent announcements about any such upcoming issue. According to media reports the idea of a Melania cover had been suggested by management but it faced resistance from the magazine's staff.
An example of the viral image could be seen in an X post (archived here) published on August 29 with a comment that read:
Let the meltdown begin.
Love it.
This is what the purported magazine cover looked like:
(Image source: screenshot of X post by @IngrahamAngle)
However this image does not appear in Vanity Fair's archive of cover images (archived here). It also does not show up in any of the magazine's articles brought up by a search for "Melania" (archived here) or in a search of images with that label (archived here).
A search of Vanity Fair's X account for posts mentioning "Melania" did not bring up any announcements of such an issue either (archived here).
AI detection tool Hive said it was 99.9 likely the image contained AI-generated or deepfake content.
(Image source: Hive AI detection tool results for the fake Melania Vanity Fair cover)
According to reporting by The Daily Mail (archived here) there had been talk of featuring Melania Trump on the cover but the idea faced resistance from Melania and the magazine's employees:
First Lady Melania Trump laughed at Vanity Fair's offer to feature her on the magazine's cover.
...
Vanity Fair's new global editorial director Mark Guiducci tried to convince Trump over the summer but his employees nearly mutinied when they found out about the offer.
The Daily Mail on Monday spoke with one magazine editor who said there would be mass walkouts from Vanity Fair if the first lady received her own cover.
'If [Guiducci] puts Melania on the cover, half of the editorial staff will walk out, I guarantee it,' a mid-level editor told the Daily Mail.
