Actress Laura Benanti, who frequently appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to impersonate First Lady Melania Trump, said she was doxxed by a right-wing figure who shared her home address with his followers, and that the threats that followed forced her to leave her apartment.
Benanti made the revelation on The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi podcast, where she described learning that her personal information had been sent out in an email blast targeting her over the impression.
“This right-wing psychopath wrote sent an email blast to all of his people, being like, ‘Hey’ – not only my impression, but things I had said and political organizations I was a part of – and he was like, ‘Let her know what you think of her.’ And then put my f—ing address,” she said on the podcast.
Benanti found out about the doxxing through her own driver, who was part of the email list
Benanti said she only found out about the email blast by chance, through a driver who also worked in security and who happened to receive the message. “I had a driver who also did security,” she explained. “And he was MAGA… He was a part of this newsletter, he received emails from this guy!”
According to Benanti, the driver alerted her to the situation. “He texted me, and he was like, ‘This is what’s going on,’ and ‘What are we going to do?'” she recalled. She said she responded: “You tell me. These are your people!” Benanti added that the driver “was so upset that they would do this,” to which she said, “This is what I’m talking about!”
The situation, which she described as “scary,” had direct consequences for her family. Benanti said she and her family were forced to leave the apartment they owned and move into a rental. “I had to literally move,” she said. “We had to move from our apartment that we owned into a rental, and then the pandemic happened. We moved to New Jersey. So we were paying f—ing rent and a mortgage.” This forced relocation due to safety threats mirrors other cases where individuals had to flee their homes after being targeted, like this Chicago woman’s apartment escape.
She also said the threat extended to her child’s safety. “Someone took a picture of me walking my daughter to school,” she said, indicating that the harassment had gone beyond online activity. The escalation from online exposure to real-world stalking is a terrifying pattern seen in other doxxing incidents, such as one older brother’s protective response when he learned who dared to target his sister.
Benanti said she is not sure she would have agreed to do the impression had she known what would follow. “I don’t think I would have done it,” she said, referring to the doxxing incident.
The threats also led her to pause her appearances on the show for a period of time. “We all sort of were like maybe we don’t do it for a little while, and then, and then it just felt like I was being a coward,” she said.
According to The Daily Beast, Benanti first began appearing on The Late Show in 2016, performing an impression of Melania Trump that included an exaggerated accent. She continued to appear on the show on and off over the years, returning three times in 2025 and twice in the year that followed.
Her appearances reportedly drew criticism from supporters of President Donald Trump. In February, she appeared to parody the First Lady’s vanity documentary, and in April, she appeared in a cold open sketch titled A Message From First Lady Melania Trump, her last appearance before the show’s final episode aired in May.
Despite the threats, Benanti said she ultimately chose to keep doing the impression because she views political satire as meaningful. “I do think, in some ways, political satire is a public service. I can’t tell you the amount of people who come up to me who are like, ‘Thank you, I need that,'” she said on the podcast.
Benanti is a Tony Award-winning Broadway actress. The identity of the individual who allegedly sent out the email blast containing her address has not been publicly disclosed in available reports.
Published: Jul 17, 2026 03:40 pm