TOI World Desk
Melania Trump in her upcoming book addressed the major rumor over her and Donald Trump’s only son Barron Trump — that he has autism. Comedian Rosie O’Donnell, Donald Trump’s staunch critic, sparked the speculations that Barron may have autism. This impacted the then 10-year-old adversely and he was subjected to bullying, Melania revealed. The bullying made it impossible to accept O’Donell’s eventual apology.Melania wrote O’Donell acted just out of sheer malice.
But the episode helped Melania to focus on child-centric initiatives, on childhood welfare and online bullying, she said.
“Barron’s experience of being bullied both online and in real life following the incident is a clear indication of the irreparable damage caused,” Melania wrote, as quoted by the New York Times. “No apology can undo the harm inflicted upon him,” she wrote making it clear that she’s still furious at Ms O’Donnell.
Melania convened a meeting of tech executives at the White House in March 2018 to talk about childhood safety online. She wrote that she “was taken aback by the resistance from tech executive from Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Snapchat.”
Melania showed immense sensitivity as she wrote, “There is nothing shameful about autism (though O’Donnell’s tweet implied that there was), but Barron is not autistic.”
O’Donnell shared a video of a young Barron and claimed that his behavior had signs of autism spectrum disorder, including not slapping his hands together when he clapped after his father’s speech at the RNC that year.
O’Donnell posted on X “Barron Trump Autistic? if so — what an amazing opportunity to bring attention to the AUTISM epidemic…”. Melania wrote that she felt her son was being attacked because O’Donnell did not like her husband. Melania said Barron’s behavior including his hands not touching each other was completely normal at the age of 10.
At that time, Melania hired an attorney to go after the original post which made O’Donnell delete the post and apologized. She said one of her daughters was on the autism spectrum.
This year Barron turned 18 and became a head-turner wherever he goes because of his 6 feet 7 inches height. He made his political debut at a rally of Donald Trump, he’s a part of the Trumps’ crypto business, and also a driving force of Trump’s social media strategy. An athlete and a good student, Barron joined New York University’s Stern Business School this fall.