Melania Trump Criticized For Leaving Sunglasses On During D-Day Memorial Event
Melania Trump is being called “disrespectful” and “tasteless” for keeping her designer sunglasses on during Thursday’s solemn D-Day remembrance event, Yahoo! reports.
Thursday marked the 75th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. June 6, 1944 is also known as D-Day, when thousands of Allied troops lost their lives in their attempt to turn the tide of World War II. As several U.S. presidents have done before him, Donald Trump marked the occasion by visiting with veterans at the site, laying a wreath, and giving a speech.
During the event, however, first lady Melania Trump kept her oversized designer sunglasses on. Other women in attendance, including French first lady Brigitte Macron, took theirs off.
Melania’s choice to keep her sunglasses on was seen as an appalling act of disrespect by several Twitter users. For example, a user going by the name of Marie LoGuercio-Drummond suggested in a tweet that perhaps Melania didn’t fully understand where she was. “Why did Melania Trump not remove her sunglasses at this most solemn D day ceremony? How disrespectful! Mrs Macron wasn’t wearing sunglasses. I guess she is uncomfortable making eye contact. She thinks she is sitting on the French Riviera sipping champagne!!” she wrote.
Another user criticizing Melania went straight to the point, tweeting that not removing the sunglasses was “rude as hell.”
At least one etiquette expert is clear in saying that sunglasses are to be worn only in certain situations. Writing in the The Belleville News-Democrat, Dianne Isbelle says that those wearing sunglasses should remove them when going indoors unless a medical condition dictates otherwise. Similarly, when wearing them outside, they should be removed when dining, or when carrying on a conversation — again, unless a medical condition dictates otherwise. Isbelle’s column, however, didn’t directly mention sunglasses etiquette when attending solemn outdoor ceremonies.
Several Twitter users concluded that the backlash over Melania keeping her sunglasses on during the D-Day event was overblown. “This so petty, I would have done the same thing and never thought I was being disrespectful,” wrote one Twitter user. Another Twitter user suggested that perhaps Melania had a headache that day, and the sunlight was bothering her.
This is not the first time that Melania Trump’s fashion choices have drawn criticism. During the 2018 controversy that erupted over the Trump administration policy of separating migrant children from the adults they had arrived with at the border, Mrs. Trump famously wore a jacket with the words “I really don’t care, do u?” emblazoned on the back. Melania’s spokesperson insisted that there was no meaning behind her choice of jacket that day.
