Earlier this week, a fake article by Newsweek reported on social media that Melania Trump had filed for divorce. A rumor that the American media outlet formally denied on Tuesday, September 3.
Since the start of Donald Trump's American presidential campaign, Melania Trump has been very discreet. So discreet that many rumors about her marriage to the 45th President of the United States have circulated widely on the Web, including that she had filed for divorce. False information that circulated this week and was allegedly announced by the American media outlet Newsweek. Following the publication of this fake article, the magazine's editorial team decided to clarify the situation on Tuesday, September 3.
While the rumor was that Melania Trump had filed for divorce in Palm Beach County via the online electronic filing system at exactly 5:12 p.m., this was not the case. "There is no record of Melania Trump or her representatives filing for divorce in the Palm Beach County courts and no evidence elsewhere supports this claim," Newsweek reporters said after contacting the Palm Beach County court. But who started this rumor? According to the American media, it was Rebekah Jones, a former analyst at the Florida Department of Health. According to her, she simply wanted to spread false information on social networks "and carefully monitor its reach." Rebekah Jones: She Speaks Out About the False Rumor She Started
On the website Mesoscale News, on September 2, Rebekah Jones wrote and published an article in which she explains how she started "a rumor on Twitter and TikTok." "I chose something fairly innocuous - Trump has already been divorced several times and he was convicted of 34 counts of trying to hide his affair with Stormy Daniels. It wouldn't surprise anyone, and I doubt it would have much impact on the overall election campaign if she filed for divorce," she initially explained.
"I even named the wrong county in Florida at first (they live in Palm Beach, I say Miami-Dade). I put a random time (5:12 p.m.) and said it was filed through the electronic filing system, which allows anyone to file a civil action 24/7," she continued, adding that by releasing this false information, it would have been very difficult to verify the facts given that "court systems take days to report these documents." Without a quick response from Melania Trump to deny the information, this rumor spread quickly and was therefore relayed by media outlets "in less than 90 minutes" as true.
