Laura Benanti says she temporarily stopped impersonating Melania Trump on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert after a right-wing activist published her home address and encouraged his followers to contact her.
In a new episode of The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi, Benanti recalled learning that an email blast had circulated details about her political activity alongside clips of her Melania impression.
“This right-wing psychopath sent an email blast to all of his people,” Benanti said, telling recipients, “‘Let her know what you think of her.’ And then put my f*cking address.”
The situation became serious enough that Benanti and her family left the apartment they owned and moved into a rental. They later relocated to New Jersey during the pandemic.
“I had to literally move,” she said. “Someone took a picture of me walking my daughter to school.”
Benanti said she discovered the email through a driver who also provided security for her—and who happened to be a Trump supporter subscribed to the newsletter in question.
“He texted me, and he was like, ‘This is what’s going on,’ and ‘What are we going to do?’” Benanti recalled. “And I was like, ‘You tell me. These are your people!’”
The experience prompted Benanti and those around her to conclude that it might be best to shelve the impression for a while.
“We all sort of were like, maybe we don’t do it for a little while,” she said. Eventually, however, staying away began to feel like giving in.
“Then it just felt like I was being a coward,” Benanti said. “I do think, in some ways, political satire is a public service. I can’t tell you the amount of people who come up to me who are like, ‘Thank you, I need that.’”
Benanti appeared as Melania Trump on The Late Show more than a dozen times, beginning in July 2016. After stepping away from the role following Trump’s first term, she returned to the show in 2023 and continued reprising the impression through its final season.
Asked whether she would have accepted the role had she known what it would bring, Benanti acknowledged that she might have reconsidered.
“I don’t think I would have done it,” she said.
Benanti is currently touring her comedy-music show Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares. The tour opened in London this week and is scheduled to visit Chicago, New Brunswick, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Costa Mesa and Boston before concluding with an Arlington, Virginia engagement in spring 2027.
