No, Melania Trump didn’t file for divorce in Palm Beach over Labor Day weekend

Rumors about the status of former President Donald Trump’s marriage to former first lady Melania Trump seemingly came to a head during the weekend.

"The streets are saying Melania Trump just filed for divorce MINUTES ago in Palm Beach," read a Sept. 1 Threads post.

Another Threads post, which expressed doubt about the claim, included an image of what appears to be a Newsweek X post that says, "Melania Trump e-files for divorce as Trump campaign tanks, sentencing looms."

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

But the claim originated from a false rumor spread by Rebekah Jones, former data scientist for Florida’s Department of Health and former Democratic congressional candidate. She was previously granted whistleblower status in 2021 after filing a complaint over the termination of her employment with Florida's Department of Health.

"We have reviewed all of our court records, including those filing still in our workflow queue waiting to be processed, and we have no divorce case filed by Melania Trump here in Palm Beach County," Karina Rodriguez-Matzen, civil court operations director for Palm Beach County Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller, told PolitiFact.

A Newsweek spokesperson told PolitiFact it did not publish such an article. Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for Donald Trump’s campaign, told PolitiFact the claim is "100% false." 

A reverse-image search showed that Jones posted the same image showing the Newsweek logo on X Sept. 1. A Community Note — a crowdsourced context note appended on X content —  said that the image "appears to be an altered Newsweek post from 2019."

Newsweek’s original X post with the same photo of Melania Trump is dated Dec. 5, 2019, and says, "Melania says children should be kept out of politics, Twitter reminds her of all the kids her husband caged."

On Sept. 1, Jones also posted on X saying, "BREAKING: Melania Trump filed for divorce in Palm Beach* county through online e-file system, time stamped today at 5:12 PM ET."

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X posts

stated on September 20, 2024 in an X post

First lady Jill Biden led a Cabinet meeting for President Joe Biden and her signature appears on presidential stationery.

Hours later, she said she "made up a rumor about a presidential candidate."

"Imagine if we organized and decided to create real disinformation. Imagine if we were the alt-right," she posted. "If an e-filing was made today, it wouldn't show up in the system until next week." Sept. 1 fell on a Sunday. 

In a TikTok video, Jones said she started the rumor as an experiment to "measure the different systems on social media and how they deal with misinformation."

We rate the claim that Melania Trump filed for divorce Sept. 1 in Palm Beach Pants on Fire!

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird and Staff Writer Sara Swann contributed to this report.