A bronze statue of Melania Trump was sawed off at the ankles and stolen this week in the first lady’s native Slovenia, police said.
The statue took the place of a previous wooden version that was set up near her hometown of Sevnica in 2020, at the close of President Donald Trump’s first term, after it fell victim to an arson attack.
Both statues were a collaboration between Brad Downey, an artist from Kentucky, and a local craftsman, Ales “Maxi” Zupevc.
The initial statue, crafted from wood and hewn from the trunk of a linden tree, depicted the first lady wearing a pale blue dress, echoing the outfit she donned at Trump’s 2016 inauguration.
“I think no one was really proud at this statue, not even the first lady of the USA,” Kranjc said. “So, I think it’s OK that it’s removed.”
Zupevc mentioned that both he and Melania Trump were born in the same hospital, which partly motivated him to design the piece. He used a chainsaw to carve the statue and refined it with a power tool.
The statue was a rustic likeness of the first lady. (Getty Images)
“I plugged in my angle grinder. … I worked and made mistakes … finished the hair … the eyes and all. Then, I called my brother, who said, ‘Spitting image of our waitress.’ And so it was,” Zupevc said during a documentary film by Downey on the making of the original statue.
A plaque next to the statue says it is “dedicated to the eternal memory of a monument to Melania which stood at this location.”
Born Melanija Knavs in nearby Novo Mesto in 1970, the first lady grew up in Sevnica while Slovenia was part of the Communist-ruled former Yugoslavia. An Alpine nation of 2 million people, Slovenia is now a member of the European Union and NATO.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
