A “leaked” Vanity Fair cover for its September issue roiled and delighted certain corners of the web on Friday, with the front page featuring First Lady Melania Trump and anointing her “the new American Queen,” inspiring reaction from across the great political divide, including from conservative mainstay Laura Ingraham and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The Melania cover’s release came just after a report in Page Six claimed the former model and first lady refused to pose for Vanity Fair — a source told the gossip column that the steely Slovenian “laughed” at the mere request and immediately shut the idea down back in July.
The cover itself seems to suggest it may not have emerged from the downtown offices of Conde Nast’s culture and news affairs title, with its A.I. image and jokey copy. Teased below a tad too pristine of an image of a crowned first lady is the phrase “The New American Queen” — a headline to own the libs if one were ever written. Teased below this is an article delving into “Melania Trump’s Silent Revolution.” The key components of the forthcoming Melania Intifada? “Fashion, power & the art of staying silent.”
Not everyone got the joke, though. In a tweet on Friday, conservative Fox News presenter Ingraham dropped a tweet on X that traveled far and wide across the web. Below the image, the unabashedly pro-Trump Ingraham wrote: “Let the meltdown begin. Love it.” Ingraham wasn’t alone, though, as several of her followers seemed to believe the cover to be real, calling Melania’s Vanity Fair debut “beautiful, elegant and classy” and predicting the liberal and conservative reaction.
On the left, Gov. Newsom’s comms office had some light fun with the situation, posting a VF cover that mimicked Melania’s debut for the storied mag but featured a crowned Gavin. King Newsom is declared in the text and a story covering “Hair, Gel and the Art of Being so Handsome” is treated as within the issue; “AN HONOR! “THANK YOU!!!” the post on X reads.
By Friday afternoon, it became clear that indeed, the Melania Vanity Fair cover was created as a goof — the handiwork of the Next News Network, a YouTube-based fake news channel run by Gary Franchi, who doubles as news anchor for the not-real news outlet that cobbles together stories from the Associated Press. Franchi and his network are remembered for spreading a story that the U.S. had created a concentration camp for its citizens and another fake news story about Bill Clinton raping a teenager.
The X post that revealed the fake video news platform as the culprit claimed the cover was leaked from the magazine to the YouTube outlet, and even made up some claptrap about a staff protest and a writer refusing the story. The fake news outlet even dragged famed photographer Annie Leibovitz into their charade, writing that she shot the image.
“The cover drops Monday,” the network wrote on X and then named the incorrect side of the political aisle while anticipating a reaction. “Get your popcorn ready because liberal media Twitter is about to EXPLODE.”