Where Is Melania Trump? First Lady To Miss G7, North Korea Summits

The White House confirmed that First Lady Melania Trump was expected to attend an event honoring the Gold Star families on Monday. The fact that it will be a closed press event and that she will not be joining her husband for either the G7 summit this year or to the June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in Singapore, fuelled the already spiraling conspiracy theories about her absence.

The reason as to why the media is choosing to focus on Trump not accompanying her husband to the G7 summit this year might also be because it was an event where she made her international debut last year when she joined the president to Taormina, Italy. At the event, she participated in a number of public appearances with the spouses of other G7 leaders.

Last year, the White House released the following remarks from the first lady regarding the event: “Gold Star families have lost an immediate family member who was serving during wartime, and they are a unique and distinct category of individuals who should be cherished. These families have endured the ultimate in pain and sacrifice on behalf of our country, and I am honored to have spent the evening with them. My husband and I commit to always pay tribute to our active service military, veterans, and the families who love them."

The last time Trump was spotted in public was on May 10, when she visited the Andrews Air Force Base with the president to welcome three Americans who had been detained by North Korea, back to U.S. soil. That means it has been almost a month since she made a public appearance, both alone or by her husband, which is not normal for a first lady.

A few days after that appearance, the White House announced that Trump was admitted to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, for what was characterized as a benign kidney procedure. However, conspiracy-mongers refused to believe this information.

Conspiracy theories from a botched plastic surgery to a trip back to Trump Tower in New York began circulating in social media, fuelled by the fact that while the other members of her family – her husband, step-children Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Tiffany Trump, and son-in-law Jared Kushner – spent the weekend at Camp David, she was conspicuously absent. The speculations grew to the point where “#WhereIsMelania” started trending.

Breaking her silence on flying rumors, Trump finally cleared the air on Twitter on May 30. "I see the media is working overtime speculating where I am & what I'm doing. Rest assured, I'm here at the @WhiteHouse w my family, feeling great, & working hard on behalf of children & the American people!,” she wrote.

Stephanie Grisham, the first lady's director of communications, told ABC News last Wednesday she was "doing really well." "She's been involved in several internal meetings with staff all last week, and that continues this week. We've been going over initiatives and other long-term planning for events such as the congressional picnic and Fourth of July," Grisham said.