Melania Trump has disclosed that her son Barron is not “autistic”—and claimed that he was bullied in person and online because Rosie O’Donnell tweeted the false claim.
The former first lady addressed long-running claims that the youngest of Donald Trump’s five children may be on the autism spectrum in her new memoir, Melania, which is published on Tuesday. The Daily Beast has seen a copy of the 184-page book.
The book frequently attacks critics of both Melania and her husband, rehashing many of the controversies involving the couple since Trump ran for election in 2015.
But it is the passage on O’Donnell which may be the most vitriolic about one of the couple’s perceived enemies—and most enlightning about Barron, whose privacy Melania had, until now, fiercely guarded.
The clash with O’Donnell started when Barron, now 18, was the subject of a cruel viral video in November 2016 which purported to show that his behavior had signs of autism spectrum disorder, including not slapping his hands together when he clapped at the end of his father’s speech to the Republican National Convention that year.
The video was given rocket fuel when O’Donnell, the comedian and former co-host of The View, tweeted about it in apparent sympathy, saying that it was an “opportunity to bring attention” to what she called “the autism epidemic.”
This was the tweet by Rosie O’Donnell which sparked a furious response by Melania Trump then and in her memoir eight years later. The book offers an unprecedented insight into her son’s private life.
@Rosie/Twitter
“I was appalled by such cruelty,” Melania writes. “It was clear to me that she was not interested in raising awareness about autism. I felt that she was attacking my son because she didn’t like my husband.”
The former first lady makes clear that she had watched every second of the video, which was later deleted by the person who posted it, writing, “Someone had painstakingly compiled the footage and added captions like, ‘His hands are moving erratically and aren’t touching each other. Then he was spotted making strange movements in his seat, typical of children with autism.’”
The 184-page memoir contains a mix of autobiography, score-settling and hype for her husband.
Skyhorse Publishing
But, Melania says, his behavior was normal for his age; at the time of the 2016 RNC in Cleveland, Barron was 10.
“There is nothing shameful about autism (though O’Donnell’s tweet implied that there was), but Barron is not autistic,” she writes.
She accuses O’Donnell of “sheer malice,” and calls it “devastating as a parent.” “It felt like my heart was breaking into pieces.”
O’Donnell deleted the tweet and apologized for it, saying that one of her daughters was on the autism spectrum, shortly after Melania hired a hard-charging attorney to go after the original poster, who also deleted the video.
But in the book she writes, “Barron’s experience of being bullied both online and in real life following the incident is a clear indication of the irreparable damage caused.” It is the first time she has suggested that bullying of Barron went beyond online trolling and into his offline experience as a child.
Rosie O’Donnell’s tweet about Barron came just two weeks after he was seen with his parents at his father’s election-night victory celebration in New York.
Carlo Allegri/Reuters
She also attributes O’Donnell’s tweet to the long-running feud between the comedian and her husband which started in 2006 and which was pursued obsessively by the then-star of The Apprentice on Twitter for years afterwards. It spilled into his first presidential campaign when he was challenged by then-Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly at the first Republican debate. When she said, “You’ve called women fat pigs, dogs, slobs, disgusting animals,” Trump raised his finger to interrupt and smiling, said, “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”
The memoir by the former first lady is being released just a month before election day. It is published by Skyhorse Publishing—which has also released books by RFK Jr. expressing anti-vaccine views, and a memoir by Woody Allen which had been canceled by its initial publisher—and distributed by Simon & Schuster.
Melania has already revealed that she is at odds with her husband’s party over abortion, saying that she is uncompromising in her views about reproductive rights. “Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?” she writes. “A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”
In contrast her husband appointed three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade; has vacillated on whether he would sign a national abortion ban (he currently claims he would not); flip-flopped on whether he would support, as a Florida resident, a ballot measure which would overturn its current six-week abortion limit (he now says he will vote to keep the six-week limit); and previously said there should be “some form of punishment” for women who terminate a pregnancy.
The book, as seen by the Beast, is highly supportive of Trump overall and much of it is dedicated to boasting about her time as First Lady while complaining about “the media” and other perceived critics.
But it has a through-line of her love for Barron, whom she describes in one passage when he is almost 14 as a “remarkable young man.” “Barron possesses a rare combination of intelligence, charm, and diligence,” she writes. “With a circle of friends, a thirst for knowledge, and a range of hobbies, Barron continued to astound me with his growth and potential.”
The book by his mother describes Barron, now 18, as having a “circle of friends, a thirst for knowledge, and a range of hobbies.” He made his political debut with a fist-pump at a rally held by his father in July.
Marta Lavandier/AP
She does not provide an update on Barron for readers, but the 6-foot-7 18-year-old is now a freshman at New York University’s Stern School of Business, where some of his professors are open critics of his father’s economic policies. Barron is now living in Trump Tower, rather than in a dorm at the college in lower Manhattan, and Melania has suggested that she is living with him, telling Fox News’ Ainsley Earhardt that she is not “an empty nester.”
Intriguingly the book’s dust-jacket says of Melania, “She resides in Palm Beach, Florida, with her family.”
