Marla Maples seemed, at first, to be doing what she’s been doing for years: hovering at the edges of Donald Trump-world without ever quite stepping back into the spotlight.
In a brief Instagram Story from Mar-a-Lago, she laughs, leans in, and lets a much younger woman pull her closer, the kind of easy, sun-soaked moment that fits right into Florida’s glossy political–social scene. But once you notice who is sitting beside her, the video stops feeling like harmless background noise and starts looking a lot more like a statement.
The woman beside her is Emily Austin, the 24-year-old conservative influencer who went viral after mocking Billie Eilish’s pro-immigrant, anti-ICE Grammy speech. In 2026, that’s not just a personality pairing. It’s a signal flare, soft-lit and algorithm-ready.
Marla Maples, 62, has mostly tried to live in a peculiar American lane: famous enough that her name still triggers tabloid memory, close enough to Donald Trump’s family that she never really leaves the orbit, but cautious about becoming a daily political combatant. She and Donald Trump married in 1993 and divorced in 1999, long before the red hats and rallies, back when the drama was mostly supermarket covers and late-night punchlines.
That’s why the Story matters. It isn’t Marla Maples merely showing up at Mar-a-Lago; it’s Marla Maples choosing to amplify Austin—an influencer whose currency is culture-war contempt, packaged as sass. In today’s right-wing media ecosystem, you don’t need to give a speech to endorse someone. Sometimes you just hand them proximity and let the internet do the rest.
Marla Maples, who is one of Donald trump’s famous ex-wives and the mother of his daughter, Tiffany, seemingly threw support behind her ex and his political supporters after sharing a video online that showed her hanging out with a MAGA influencer who … https://t.co/40FLtnJcQT pic.twitter.com/S0g3McUSNM
— Irish Star US (@IrishStarUS) February 19, 2026
Austin’s big breakout didn’t come from a policy debate or a Fox News hit. It was the 2026 Grammy Awards, of all places, where she quietly turned herself into a right-wing folk hero by filming her own reaction to Billie Eilish’s acceptance speech and tossing it online.
While Billie Eilish delivered a defiant, pro-immigrant message from the stage, Austin sat stone-faced in the crowd, then mocked the moment afterward with exaggerated, eye-rolling sarcasm: “I’m so edgy, I said f*** ICE, oh my God, haha.” In the caption, she twisted the knife a little more, calling Eilish’s remarks “Painful to listen to.”
It landed because it was designed to land: a neat little performance of disdain aimed at a pop star’s moral seriousness, with Austin cast as the eye-rolling avatar for people who want to sneer at Hollywood activism without doing much thinking beyond that.
Billie Eilish, accepting Song of the Year for “Wildflower,” didn’t wrap her politics in metaphor. “As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything but that no one is illegal on stolen land,” she said, before urging continued protest and ending with “f*** ICE.” The room cheered; the clip traveled. Austin’s video traveled faster.
Indy100 notes Austin describes herself as “conservative as it gets,” and that she has built a public profile large enough to include interviews and photos with prominent figures in Donald Trump-world. She’s also positioned as a sports journalist and influencer with a massive following across platforms, which helps explain how a Grammys reaction clip can turn into a political calling card.
Put that next to Marla Maples’ Instagram Story, and the subtext starts to write itself. Marla Maples doesn’t need to say she agrees with Austin’s mockery of Billie Eilish. She only needs to smile beside her at Mar-a-Lago and share it to her followers.
Maybe Marla Maples thought it was just a flattering shot. Maybe she liked Austin’s energy in the moment. But it’s hard to ignore what this reveals about the modern conservative celebrity pipeline: the surest way to climb is not policy fluency, not governing experience, not even persuasion. It’s performance—preferably against a liberal celebrity, preferably on camera, preferably with a sneer.
While Hollywood celebrities like Billie Eilish wore ‘Ice Out’ pins at the Grammys, Emily Austin wore a USA clutch. 🇺🇸
“While others use this stage to divide, I chose to walk this carpet as a proud, unapologetic voice for the values that make this nation great.” – @emilyraustin pic.twitter.com/vdctAQrTLr
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) February 2, 2026
And there’s Marla Maples, the former spouse who once seemed like a relic of Donald Trump’s pre-politics life, helping usher that performance into the soft-focus respectability of his most famous room.
