Melania Trump is Getting Roasted in Her Home Country

Melania Trump is being roasted in her home country, with a Slovenian pop star mocking the former first lady on TikTok.

It comes while an online debate rages over the appropriateness of Melania Trump's gray coat at Rosalynn Carter's funeral while other first ladies wore black, pockets on the right are starting to push back against the narrative with some photos of their own.

In a video shared on November 30, Ben Dolic (@bendolic) simultaneously poked fun at the 53-year-old ex-model and Slovenia's music scene.

"The most famous person in my country is..." the 26-year-old says in the clip, pausing as a drum roll commences.

"Melania Trump. If that doesn't say something about the music industry in Slovenia, I don't know what will."

Newsweek has reached out to Ben Dolic for comment via Instagram and Melania Trump via email.

However, Dolic—who rose to fame after taking part in TV singing competition The Voice of Germany—did introduce viewers to some of his favorite Slovenian artists including indie bank Joker Out and singer-songwriter Senidah.

"I think internationally, [Melania Trump] is the most known person from my home country," Dolic told Newsweek. "But to me and a lot of others, basketball player Luka Doncic could also have this title.

"I think the video introduced lots of viewers to new music. The music industry [in Slovenia] is very small and there's not much opportunity for growth, and I aim to use my platform to improve the global impact of Slovenian artists."

Melania Trump was born in Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia—now known as Slovenia—in 1970. Her father was a car dealer, while her mother worked in textiles. During the early to mid-1990s, Trump enjoyed a successful modeling career in Europe under the name Melania Knauss, famously posing nude in the French men's magazine Max.

She moved to New York in 1996 after signing with Paolo Zampolli's modeling agency, appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated and a Camel cigarette ad in Times Square.

She met business mogul Donald Trump in 1998, with the pair getting married in 2005 at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Their son, Barron Trump, was born in 2006.

In 2016, she became the second first lady to be born overseas when her husband was elected president.

Although Dolic was joking in his TikTok clip, an informal ballot did name Melania Trump as the world's "Most Famous Slovenian." According to a vote on Straw Poll—a website where anyone can make a poll—Melania Trump is No.1, followed by philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek and NHL star Anže Kopitar.

Unfortunately, Trump received the lowest-ever popularity rating for a first lady during her family's time in the White House. A CNN/SSRS poll from 2021, shortly after Donald Trump's 2020 election fraud claims and the January 6 riots, found that Melania Trump had only a 42 percent approval rating.

This is significantly lower than previous presidents' wives, with the average final approval rating for departing first ladies usually around 70 percent.

Until recently, Melania Trump appeared to be avoiding the media, despite her husband's legal battles—which include 91 charges in four jurisdictions—and second run in the Republican presidential primaries. Prior to their Halloween party at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, the couple had not been seen in public for months, leading to rumors they had separated.

However, her former aide Stephanie Winston Wolkoff told The Washington Post on November 10 that Melania Trump enjoys teasing the press. She described the runway star's silence as "armor" that maintains the "narrative of being mysterious and an enigma."

Update 12/6/23, 10:11 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with comment from Ben Dolic.