Melania Trump has spent a number of nights at a posh D.C. hotel away from President Trump following allegations of a fling with porn star Stormy Daniels, White House sources told DailyMail.com.
The first lady opted for time away from her husband since news of a possible $130,000 payoff from the President’s lawyer to Daniels to cover up an alleged tryst was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Then, last week, to add insult to injury, a celebrity magazine published a cringe-worthy 2011 interview with Daniels in which she talked about the alleged 2006 sexual encounter with the future president in a hotel room at a casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada following a celebrity charity golf tournament.
‘It’s been upsetting and humiliating; her relationship with President Trump has become strained,’ a White House source told DailyMail.com.
Melania left Washington D.C. mid-day on Thursday for West Palm Beach, Florida, just as the president held court at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, an event the first lady was originally scheduled to attend.
Betrayed: First Lady Melania Trump has been spending time away from her husband and the White House since news of the president’s alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels broke
Trump’s lawyer allegedly paid Daniels (pictured with Trump) $130,000 to keep mum about their alleged sexual encounter
The first lady left Washington D.C. for West Palm Beach Thursday afternoon in an unannounced trip, just as her husband was holding court with top European CEOs in Davos
The spokesperson for the first lady did not respond to several requests for comment from DailyMail.com regarding Melania’s hotel stays.
Daniels, who has starred in movies such as ‘Good Will Humping’ and ‘Operation Desert Stormy,’ claimed she could intimately describe the president’s manhood and even revealed sex positions they had enjoyed.
At the time, Melania would have been caring for her and Trump’s four-month-old son Barron.
Sparking more rumors and speculation about the impact on their marriage, on Tuesday it was announced she would not be joining President Trump on his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland as was originally planned.
East Wing communications director Stephanie Grisham confirmed to DailyMail.com that the first lady’s decision to forgo the trip to Davos was based on ‘scheduling and logistical issues,’ as CNN reported.
Grisham had said the First Lady had intended to go to Davos as a show of support for her husband, who will deliver a speech at the forum.
But White House sources have told DailyMail.com that a memo sent to staffers also indicated the first lady is not expected to make any solo appearances while the President is away, drawing into question how her schedule is conflicted.
One well-placed source said: ‘Melania spends three to four days a week away from the White House and has stayed at a hotel in D.C. multiple times in January, often for days at a time. She also travels up to New York .
‘She’s rarely comes into her West Wing office as other first ladies have done and her schedule is vague at best.
‘She seems to be avoiding duties unless there is a very special reason.
‘Talk among staffers is that the Stormy Daniels affair hit her hard, it’s been upsetting and humiliating and her relationship with President Trump has become strained.
Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, claimed she could intimately describe the president’s manhood and even revealed sex positions they had enjoyed
‘If she is seen with him in public she’s very robotic, she smiles and then they go their separate ways.
‘Melania seems to be actively limiting the time she spends with her husband and her behavior has raised eyebrows.’
InTouch magazine published a cringe-worthy 2011 interview with Daniels in which she talked about a 2006 sexual encounter with the future president in a hotel room at a casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada following a celebrity charity golf tournament
Since the WSJ story emerged on January 12 Melania has notably not made any public statements and was not seen.
She finally broke her cover on Thursday morning, making at unannounced appearance at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.
The tour was in advance of Saturday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but also marked the first time FLOTUS has been seen in 10 days.
The White House did not invite reporters to cover the excursion, was only publicized by the first lady’s spokeswoman publicizing with a tweet.
According to CNN, the first lady wasn’t by her husband’s side as he hunkered down to handle the government shutdown this past weekend either.
The first lady, 47, has traveled with President Trump, 71, on all four of his foreign trips so far, accompanying him to Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican, Rome, Belgium, Poland, France, Japan and China, among other countries.
She did skip the last two stops of Trump’s fourth trip, however, which included Vietnam and the Philippines.
Daniels, 38, has enjoyed a resurgence in her career ever since the scandal erupted and stripped off for the start of her ‘Make America Horny Again’ tour in South Carolina Saturday night
The couple’s 13th wedding anniversary came and went on Monday without a mention by POTUS or FLOTUS, and no time was slotted in the president’s schedule for any such celebration.
The anniversary landed during a busy news cycle that saw the president tweeting four times throughout the day solely on the government shutdown.
Melania did not tweet or mention it on her own social media either. In fact, she remained completely mum on her social through the day.
This was a departure from the couple’s 10th anniversary, when Trump reportedly gave Melania a 25-carat diamond ring, an upgrade from her previous 12-carat engagement ring.
After the Stormy Daniels scandal broke on January 12 Melania did depart with the President later that day to Mar-a-Lago for the long holiday weekend, but she wasn’t seen with him during two evening dinners hosted by Trump, one with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and another with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
She tweeted on January 15 in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, something her husband was criticized for not doing.
And on Saturday, Melania tweeted a photo acknowledging the anniversary of her husband’s inauguration, but did not mention him directly in the tweet, nor was he featured in the picture.
First lady Melania Trump visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Thursday, in advance of Saturday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Before tweeting photos of the tour, the first lady hadn’t been photographed in 10 days, during which time a 2011 interview with porn star Stormy Daniels was published by In Touch Weekly detailing her alleged affair with Donald Trump
‘This has been a year filled with many wonderful moments,’ she tweeted.
‘I’ve enjoyed the people I’ve been lucky enough to meet throughout our great country & the world!’
The photo showed the former model with a military escort on Inauguration day.
Ever since the affair scandal broke porn star Stormy Daniels has been booked up solid making personal appearances at strip joints across the east coast.
Daniels, 38, has enjoyed a resurgence in her career ever since the scandal erupted and stripped off for the start of her ‘Make America Horny Again’ tour in South Carolina Saturday night.
Daniels talked about the sexual encounter with the future president at the Harrah’s Casino hotel during the American Century celebrity golf tournament at the Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course in Stateline, Nevada, in July 2006.
Trump, she said, took the opportunity to summon her to the sheets after she used his suite’s bathroom.
‘The sex was nothing crazy,’ Daniels recalled. ‘He wasn’t like, chain me to the bed or anything. It was one position.’
She added: ‘I can definitely describe his junk perfectly, if I ever have to.’
Daniels said Trump ‘definitely seemed smitten’ after their romp. ‘He was like, “I wanna see you again, when can I see you again?”‘
At the time of the alleged affair, Melania would have been caring for her and Trump’s four-month-old son Barron (the family pictured in 2006)
Daniels told InTouch that Trump, then a reality TV star, lured her into conversations and sex with a promise that he would get her a role on his show, ‘The Apprentice.’
‘I didn’t have any unrealistic expectations of actually being on the show … So now I wonder if the whole thing was just a f***ing lie,’ she said, to get her into bed.
‘And I guess it worked.’
Daniels said that Trump deflected questions about his wife, the future first lady, despite the fact that she was at home with an infant son while he was making publicity appearances.
Daniels was allegedly paid $130,000 to keep silent about her fling with Trump just before he entered the presidential race in 2015.
And on Thursday last week the liberal magazine Mother Jones published a 2009 email between two political operatives who were discussing Daniels’ alleged admission to one consultant that Trump ‘had her spank him with a Forbes magazine.’
Daniels has previously denied that she engaged in any type of sexual relationship with Trump, in a statement released by the president’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
Trump has also denied having an affair with her. But no one has denied that a hush-money payment was made.
Trump and Melania’s marriage was thrust into the spotlight recently after the release of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury which detailed their bizarre private life.
Wolff claimed the marriage ‘was perplexing to almost everybody around [Trump]’ and that the two ‘spent relatively little time together.’
‘They could go days at a time without contact, even when they were both in Trump Tower.’
The book also stated that the First Couple slept in separate bedrooms in the White House – ‘the first time since the Kennedy White House that a presidential couple had maintained separate rooms.’
The president also allegedly discussed with friends about ‘how the more years between an older man and a younger woman, the less the younger woman took an older man’s cheating personally.’