" I really do n’t handle . Do u ? "
First lady Melania Trump’s frequentabsencefrom the White House since the start of her husband’s second term in January has been well documented. Now, it seems, a statue of her in her home country of Slovenia is following suit.
Last Tuesday, authoritieslearnedof the disappearance of a bronze statue in Melania’s likeness in Rozno, Slovenia, near her hometown of Sevnica. An original wooden version of the statue was unveiled in 2019, but was set on fire by arsonists on 29 March 2025.
Here’s what the bronze replacement looked like, standing on a tree stump that served as its pedestal:
The statue appears to have beensawedoff at the ankles, leaving only a pair of giant bronze feet attached to the stump. Brad Downey, the American artist who commissioned both versions of the piecewroteon Instagram, “To remove the feet is to deny grounding, erase direction, and halt motion. What’s left is a fragment — rooted, but silenced. A body no longer able to move forward, a ghost.”
NBC Newsreportedon the story on TikTok, starting out with a quip: “Police in Slovenia are on the hunt for this bronze statue… of believe it or not, Melania Trump. She’s missing.”
The anchor details some of the history of the statue and the damage to the bronze, then concludes, “And then they nabbed it. They took off with her.”
Here’s what the aftermath looks like:
A lot of folks were confused about the appearance of the statue. “That’s the statue?? That could literally be of anyone 😭 they put no effort into it,” one commenter wrote.
This person jokingly disagreed: “The artist truly captured her likeness. It’s uncanny.”
A lot of people, Slovenians included, had no idea this was even a thing.
“She’s missing here too…” this person wrote, presumably in reference to her low-profile second term as first lady.
Some folks referenced Melania’s 2018appearancein a jacket reading “I really don’t care. Do u?” She wore this en route to a detention center for migrant children.
But overall, one outlandish yet comical theory prevailed: “She probably hired someone to rob it herself,” users wrote.
