Melanie Marden told Inside Edition in an exclusive interview that she didn't intend to offend first lady Melania Trump.
The model who starred as a Melania Trump look-alike in a controversial T.I. video has spoken exclusively to Inside Edition about the fallout she's experienced.
Melanie Marden posted on Instagram earlier this week that she's been getting death threats ever since the video was posted on Twitter last Friday. The clip shows Marden walking into the Oval Office wearing only that infamous “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” jacket, which she ultimately sheds, then climbs atop the Resolute Desk as T.I. lights a cigar.
Marden said the threats she's received are varied. "Somebody was going to hit me with their car. Somebody was going to take a baseball bat to me. Somebody wished me to get raped and then killed."
Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for the first lady, called for a boycott of T.I.’s music in response to the salacious Twitter post. “How is this acceptable?” Grisham tweeted over the weekend.
Marden said she never intended to make a political statement, pointing out that she's actually Canadian.
"It was an opportunity for me to step right outside my comfort zone and play the first lady — yes, naked, which I've never done before," she said.
But she added she believes Melania shouldn't have been offended in the first place.
"The first lady's husband does a lot of bullying himself," Marden said. "So they've got some thick skin. If I was insulting her and degrading her, then it would be one thing, but I don't think I was."
In a new video that she gave to Inside Edition exclusively and shot herself, Marden channels the first lady anew, wearing the same jacket — but this time she has a message.
"Yes, I was naked, but I have been naked before," Marden says in the video, referencing to Melania's infamous nude magazine shoot from two decades ago.
"There is no need for death threats," Marden, as Melania, adds. "Life is short. Relax."
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