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Securing a spot on Twitter’s trending topic list can be both a blessing and a curse. On Tuesday, Tom Ford got a taste of, well, both (?) when a now-deleted comment about Melania Trump was attributed to him. “I have no interest in dressing a glorified escort who steals speeches and has bad taste in men,” the quote read. Only problem is Ford never actually uttered those words. But the damage was already done. The Twitter machine took off and Tom Ford’s “quote” was already getting the meme treatment.
The original fabricated quote made its rounds on Twitter and eventually landed on rapper 50 Cent’s Instagram where he reposted the since-deleted original tweet praising Tom Ford while denouncing Gucci (presumably referring to the blackface backlash the brand faced last month).
“This is an absolutely fabricated and completely fake quote attributed to Mr. Ford that has somehow gone viral,” a spokesperson for Tom Ford told ELLE.com. “Mr. Ford did not make this statement; it is completely false.”
Tom Ford did, years ago, comment on dressing Melania Trump. During an appearance on The View in 2016, Ford said he previously declined to dress Melania because she doesn’t fit his “image.”
He clarified his statement months later during an interview with ELLE.com on the Golden Globes red carpet: “Given this President’s beliefs about ‘made in America’–I think the clothes they wear should be made in America,” Ford said. “I think that whoever is the President, or the First Lady, should be wearing clothes at a price point that are accessible to most Americans, and wearing clothes made in America. My clothes are made in Italy, they’re very, very expensive. I don’t think most women or men in our country can relate to that, and I think the First Lady or the President should represent all people.”
Still, Twitter had a field day with the Ford’s fake quote and the memes are the best part.