Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are "clearly not living together," making an unusually direct claim about the presidential couple's private arrangements as questions persist over Melania's limited presence during Trump's second term.
Scaramucci, a onetime Trump ally who has become a prominent critic of the president, offered no direct evidence establishing the couple's current living arrangements. The White House and the first lady's office haven't commented on his allegations, leaving his description of their marriage unconfirmed.
"I think it's distant for a number of different reasons. But I think they probably have grown apart," Scaramucci said during a podcast appearance. Asked specifically about their living situation, he added: "It's pretty clear that they're not living together."
Melania had already indicated at the beginning of Trump's second term that she wouldn't spend all of her time at the White House. She said she expected to divide her schedule among Washington, New York and Palm Beach, Fla., with son Barron Trump's studies at New York University cited as an important consideration.
Reports that Barron subsequently transferred to an NYU campus in Washington have renewed questions about where the first lady spends most of her time. Those circumstances don't independently establish that the Trumps are separated or living apart because of marital difficulties.
Scaramucci served only about 10 days as White House communications director in July 2017 before his dismissal following a profanity-laced conversation with a reporter. He later broke sharply with Trump, supporting Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and Kamala Harris in 2024.
Despite his relationship with the president deteriorating, Scaramucci said he retained positive memories of Melania. "She was always very nice to me," he said. "I always liked her, my wife liked her. She was down to earth, classy."
Scaramucci argued that the Trump family found the pressures surrounding the first administration particularly difficult. He suggested those experiences may have contributed to family members taking a less visible approach during Trump's return to power.
"The family unit that came into Trump 1.0 didn't like it," Scaramucci said. "They didn't like the blistering in Washington. They didn't like the 360-degree firing squad. I don't think they like the spotlight that was put on them."
Separate reporting has also described disagreements between Donald and Melania Trump over the White House itself. In Regime Change, reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan wrote that Melania opposed Trump's plans to demolish the 123-year-old East Wing and replace it with a 90,000-square-foot ballroom projected to cost as much as $1 billion.
"Mrs. Trump, who preferred a quiet environment with minimal disturbances and objected to living in a construction zone, had repeatedly expressed concern about the size and location of the ballroom," Haberman and Swan wrote.
"For several weeks in early 2025, White House aides had tried accommodating the couple's competing desires about the future of the complex," they added. Trump ultimately proceeded with the project despite his wife's reported concerns.
Haberman and Swan also reported that the couple maintained separate bedrooms in the White House, with Melania using the master bedroom while Trump occupied an adjoining second-floor room. Separate sleeping arrangements, however, don't by themselves establish the condition of a marriage or confirm Scaramucci's broader assertion that the couple currently live separate lives.
The authors described friction over White House décor as well, reporting that Trump sometimes moved furnishings selected for other areas into his own space. "Once, when staff gently reminded the president that he was taking things from the Center Hall his wife had personally selected, he made clear he didn't care," they wrote. "He seemed almost to be competing with her, determined to have the better room."
According to the book, White House personnel viewed the Trumps as "the only presidential couple to regularly use and maintain separate bedrooms since Richard and Pat Nixon." The authors also wrote that Trump's "obsessive focus on interior decorating made the staff yearn for the First Lady to return and hopefully rein him in."
