A wooden statue of Melania Trump in her native Slovenia was set on fire on the Fourth of July



A life-size sculpture of America's first lady Melania Trump, carved from a tree in Slovenia by a local artist using a chain saw last year, was set on fire on July 4, according to its creator. It has since been removed from its position on the banks of the Sava River, near the first lady's hometown, Sevnica.

The defacement came the same day US President Donald Trump delivered a speech in the shadow of Mount Rushmore, a monument to US presidents, decrying the vandalism of public sculptures in the US by protesters seeking to confront racism.



The Melania sculpture, which depicts the first lady clad in a blue dress, with a scrunched face, a unibrow, pursed lips and chunky limbs, drew mixed reactions upon its unveiling last year.

Nobody, including the art gallery that presented it, seemed to know if the statue was a parody or meant to be taken seriously, The Washington Post reported at the time.



Police in the country said an investigation was ongoing. Downey told Reuters he wanted to talk to those responsible. "I want to know why they did it," he said.

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Considering how ugly that statue is (was), not doing her any justice, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that she paid someone to torch it.

It looks like a sculpture of this bodged painting.

'Masters of the dark': Former friend lifts the lid on Donald and Melania Trump's marriage

The first lady of the United States is fully complicit in Donald Trump's actions and is "no different from her husband", according to a former friend and adviser of Melania Trump and the latest ex-White House insider to write a tell-all book.

But Mrs Trump has been "usurped" by the President's favourite daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, who have prevailed over the first lady in their fight for power and whose "need for control" is imperilling the United States, the former insider says.



Stephanie Winston Wolkoff portrays a conniving and Machiavellian partnership in which Mrs Trump is prepared to do whatever it takes to support Trump's hold on power but accepts playing second fiddle to his favourite daughter, Ivanka, from his first marriage.

Several times Mrs Trump has been seen refusing to hold her husband's hand and swatting it away, prompting speculation about the status of their marriage. Wolkoff believes it is "100 per cent" deliberate and says the first time the act caused controversy, Mrs Trump hadn't even realised she had done it.

"They are aligned in a way that everything is done for a reason. Nothing just happens," she says. "You have to understand who they are to understand what they're trying to do, which is fleece the nation... She's no different from her husband."


Stephanie Winston Wolkoff first met Melania Trump in 2003 while she was special event director at Vogue magazine.

Wolkoff describes a relationship not dissimilar to the psychopathic Underwoods from House of Cards; a "transactional marriage" which is all about supporting the "showman" Trump.

However, unlike Claire Underwood, Melania Trump has few policy or political aspirations and does not covet power herself. "She was happy at Trump Tower. She loved Trump Tower. She was thrilled at her life," Wolkoff says.

If her husband loses the presidency at the November 3 election, "she'll be in the south of France on a really big yacht with a really big brim hat doing what she's always wanted to do: nothing".

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