“I didn’t make any changes,” said the Slovenian-born model. “A lot of people say I am using all the procedures for my face. I didn’t do anything. I live a healthy life; I take care of my skin and my body. I’m against Botox, I’m against injections; I think it’s damaging your face, damaging your nerves. It’s all me. I will age gracefully, as my mom does.”

However, Melania, 54, attracted attention from the public when she was spotted wearing large sunglasses indoors on election day.

Social media detectives noted that the item she wore to cover her eyes might be a sign that she was trying to disguise recent cosmetic surgery or even her identity. People speculated that she might have been a body double at the polls in response to this hypothesis, which sparked a lot of online discussion and made the hashtag #FakeMelania trend.

“Why is Trump using a quite bad #FakeMelania stand-in with gigantic shades at the polling station? LOL Total madness!” tweets one user. A second user shares a photo of the first lady in waiting at the polls, standing alongside her husband: “They brought back #fakemelania for the series finale!” writes the user.

A third adds, “Absolutely walking around with a fake Melania. Refuses to take her sunglasses off indoors. Not her face, not her nose, not her hair and she actually smiled, so definitely not her.”

Melania Trump and plastic surgery
Now, by providing expert analysis of Melania’s appearance, plastic surgeons are trying to disprove the election day body double claim.

According to South Carolina-based cosmetic plastic surgeon Dr. Dennis Schimpf, Melania “probably had additional filler work done anticipating” the tremendous media attention that followed the election. Celebrities who want to seem young and defined without undergoing invasive surgery frequently utilize fillers for cheek plumping and jawline contouring.

Dr. Thomas Barnes, a surgeon from Newport, California, chimed in and said, “She just looked plain tired.” According to Dr. Barnes, high-stress periods can take a visible toll on one’s appearance, especially with the rigorous travel and public appearances leading up to the elections.

Dr. Gary Motykie, a cosmetic surgeon who treats celebrities in West Hollywood, has told the media that he doesn’t see “much reason to be suspicious for a facelift.”

He did see fillers and a nose job, which cost over $50,000, on Melania’s face.

“But I have noticed a change in her nose. Noses don’t typically get smaller as they get older; they get bigger, but hers is definitely smaller and more defined, so I am very suspicious for at least one rhinoplasty [nose job],” he said. “I do think she’s likely doing the maintenance work as well—fillers, particularly in the mid-face, cheeks, maybe a touch in the lips, and the standard Botox upkeep.”

Whatever she’s doing, one online user jokes that she gets a pass for being married to the president elect: “There’s no denying she’s always been a beautiful woman… but please, who is she trying to kid by saying she’s not had any work done? Own it; we wouldn’t think any less of you. You get a pass for having put up with Trump all these years,” writes one netizen.

A second offers, “With her money and the pressure on women in the USA to look 25 at 75 of course she has! They all do it and they all deny it saying it’s down to good nutrition and Nivea cream!” A third writes, “I could still happily wake up next to her, whether she has or not.”

However, not everyone likes the physical changes she makes.

“She was once very attractive. But the work on her face is awful. She looks like every other plastic face in America, possibly worse,” writes one while a second adds, “Her skin is so lifted that soon we won’t be able to see her eyes. They already look like money slots.”