A First Lady's Regret: Melania Trump Was "Beside Herself With Guilt" After She Plagiarized Michelle Obama's Speech, Book Claims
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A First Lady's Regret: Melania Trump Was "Beside Herself With Guilt" After She Plagiarized Michelle Obama's Speech, Book Claims
Melania Trump’s infamous 2016 speech was a time in the First Lady’s career that will never be forgotten.
While speaking at the Republican National convention in 2016, the First Lady gave what some felt was a pretty impressive speech at the time. However, it was later discovered to be a plagiarized version of one that was given by Michelle Obama during a gathering of Democrats in 2008.
A viral video broke down the areas of the speech that Melania seemed to copy verbatim and it ignited a wide outcry online from people who found it to be completely inappropriate.
Melania Trump plagiarized Michelle Obama tonight, and here’s the video to prove it: pic.twitter.com/gCDeJL04zY
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) July 19, 2016
Melania Trump’s feelings about the plagiarism
Author Kate Bennett, in her book, Free, Melania: The Unauthorized Biography, sought to give people an insight into the private life and experiences of Melania Trump. And one of the things she touched on was the First Lady’s feelings about the plagiarized speech.
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According to an excerpt of the book obtained by CNN, Kate wrote that Melania was "beside herself with guilt" about the plagiarism. Evidently, the speechwriter wasn’t an expert at creating political speeches so they apparently felt it was okay to lift lines off a former FLOTUS’s speech.
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The author went on to add that Melania felt bad for the speechwriter and also felt guilty about how the saga affected her husband.
Not only did Melania Trump feel badly for her speechwriter, she also felt she had let down her husband on what should have been her most triumphant speaking engagement to date.
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Sources, however, claimed that it was Donald Trump’s fault as he should have ensured his wife’s speech was well vetted beforehand.
Michelle Obama on Melania Trump’s plagiarism
As the one whose work was plagiarized so publicly, people were curious about what Michelle Obama thought of the whole thing.
While speaking to The Late Show host Stephen Colbert, Michelle was asked to comment on the matter and the former First Lady said:
Yeah, that was tough.
There’s no doubt that this unfortunate speech tainted the start of Melania’s run as First Lady but these days, it has all become water under the bridge. Those involved have moved on and since then, Melania seems to be doing just fine with her speeches.