Trump Body-Double Conspiracy Spins Viral from the Palisades

By MATTHEW MEYER | Reporter

When Andrea Wagner Barton made a Facebook post questioning whether the woman standing beside Donald Trump for a televised address was actually the First Lady last week, she had no idea it would “go global.”

The actress, a Palisadian who performs under the name Andi Wagner, hadn’t even posted it publicly—a friend had to ask if she could turn her post off of “private” for them to share.

But now Wagner’s observation has gone super-viral, with more than 141,000 shares on Facebook at press-time and a myriad of online articles calling for a full-blown body-double conspiracy.

“Will the real Melania please stand up? Is it me or during his speech today a decoy ‘stood in’ for Melania?” Wagner wrote, adding that it seemed odd for Trump to at one point reference, “My wife, Melania, who happens to be right here.”

She also included a comparison between a Melania headshot and her on-screen appearance in large sunglasses.

After turning it public, Wagner’s quip was reposted heavily over the weekend, with the theory reaching a fever pitch after a medical cannabis company front man with a significant following tweeted the same thought.

Since then, Wagner has been cited in publications from Vanity Fair to the New York Post, and she’s been sought after for interviews by sources ranging from “Inside Edition” to a Dutch newspaper.

Wagner told the Post that her comment wasn’t made entirely in jest. She genuinely believed it could be a double: “It just seemed incredibly odd.”

But she also acknowledged articles from Washington Post, CNN Politics and others that have sought to debunk the theory with alternative angles of the address and quotes from government officials.

In the end, she concluded, Wagner is “on the fence.”

And now she’s on the viral map with one of the oddest conspiracies yet in an already bizarre political year.

“I guess that’s just how the internet works,” she said this week. “The whole thing is a riot.”