Melania Trump’s Color Choice at Rosalynn Carter’s Funeral Sparks a First Lady Wardrobe Debate

On Tuesday, all five of the living former first ladies attended the memorial service in honor ofRosalynn Carter. The wife offormer President Jimmy Carterpassed away on Nov. 19 at the age of 96, but it’s not her honorable life everyone is talking about — it’sMelania Trump’schoice of wardrobe.

During the service, the women were in the front row in order of their years in the White House, except for Dr. Jill Biden, who sat next to her husband, President Joe Biden. The women, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Jill, chose to wear an all-black ensemble to honor Rosalynn, but Donald Trump’s wife is being called out for wearing a light gray coat instead — some people felt like it was “disrespectful” to those in mourning. 

The debate grew on X, formerly Twitter, when one accountwroteabout Melania’s wardrobe with a photo of her sitting next to the other first ladies, “Turns out Melania is every bit as disrespectful and lacking in class as her husband.” Surprisingly, Melania met more support than some people might think. One account jumped to her defense,noting, “What kind of man worries about how a woman that he has never met is dressed…?” Another useradded, “No, what’s tacky & lacking in class is taking what was supposed to be a day of remembrance for the death of a former First Lady and making the conversation about the color of someone’s clothes. Ridiculous.”

And they have a strong point. No one should be policing women’s wardrobes, especially when Melania’s coat color fell under the guidelines of what is appropriate at a funeral. “Wearing dark grey or deep blue is just as appropriate as black, while brown and lighter greys are suitable for the vast majority of funeral services,”advisedStark Funeral Services on their website. And others pointed out that Hillary didn’t wear all black to Barbara Bush’s funeral andneither did Rosalynnto Richard Nixon’s services.

The only thing that matters is that all of our former first ladies set their politics aside for the day and showed up to honor the life of Rosalynn Carter.