What is the Melania Trump ‘she knows’ photo and why has it gone viral?

A picture of former First Lady Melania Trump with a mysterious caption went viral on X, leaving millions wondering what the photo and the caption might be all about and whether it might relate to Donald Trump’s Stormy Daniels hush money trial, set to begin in New York the day after the picture appeared.

For insight into what the photo and caption might mean, it was posted on the X account of Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania’s former friend and aide, hired by the First Lady after the 2016 election. Things didn’t end well between Wolkoff and the Trumps. In 2018, the Trumps fired Wolkoff, accusing Wolkoff of pocketing $26 million while planning Trump’s inauguration through her event planning company, WIS Media Partners, signaling a sweetheart deal, according to Trump’s critics. Wolkoff denied the inauguration allegations in her 2020 book, Melania and Me, claiming she was only paid $1.6 million.

What does Melania know?

On April 14, 2024, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff posted a photo of Melania Trump on an airplane, captioned,

“I sat across from Melania Trump on her airplane and took this photograph on my iPhone. Believe me, she knows …She and he are one in the same.”

via Stehanie Winston Wolkoff/X

Wolkoff didn’t elaborate on what, exactly, it was she suggested Melania “knew,” or directly link her post to Donald Trump’s Stormy Daniels trial, or any of the other court cases against the former president. Wolkoff also doesn’t mention the 2016 inauguration controversy. One can only imagine, however, that Wolkoff means to suggest that Melania is not a victim, but rather is complicit in many of her husband’s legal problems and/or political scandals.

Supporting this may have been what Wolkoff meant, she wrote in the comments, sharing a tape-recorded conversation between herself and the former first lady.

” … [P]lease educate yourself on how deceitful & morally bankrupt she is. I was her only friend & she used me as her COVERUP to cast me as a criminal, who pocketed $26 million, who was then fired (ALL FALSE) & ONLY tells me in privacy, “NONE OF IT IS TRUE,” yet used the WH & DOJ trying to SILENCE & SUE me.”

via Stephanie Winston Wolkoff/X

In 2020, when Wolkoff released her tell-all memoir Melania and Me, the book contained several direct quotes from Melania, and it was revealed that as Wolkoff’s relationship with the former first lady went south, Wolkoff secretly recorded their conversations, The New York Times reported that year. The Trumps sued Wolkoff for an NDA breach, but the Biden Justice Department later dropped the case.