For more than a year, a photo has circulated online purportedly showing a young Barron Trump, the youngest son of U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, taking his mother's picture while sitting on her lap.
One Bluesky user who shared the photograph in mid-July 2025 said it was evidence of "generational depravity" in the Trump family (archived).
Throughout the month, it appeared elsewhere on Bluesky (archived), in numerous Threads posts (archived, archived) and on X (archived). It also cropped up on social media throughout 2024.
Some X users questioned the optics of the image because of how Melania's hands were placed on Barron's legs and how he was sitting on her thighs. Others asked whether the picture was real or generated using artificial intelligence. Another X user even declared that it was fake.
However, the photo was real and was found in the Getty Images library; therefore, we have rated this claim as true.
It was captured in early January 2016 — when Barron was 9 — during a photo shoot at Trump Tower in New York City and was credited to Regine Mahaux, according to the Getty caption:
NEW YORK - JANUARY 06: Barron Trump is using the new FUJIFILM instax mini 90 as he and Melania Trump are photographed at Trump Tower on January 6, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Regine Mahaux/MT2016/Contour by Getty Images)
Similar photos showing the mother and son in different poses during the shoot were also in Getty's library.
The picture resurfaced as numerous other old photos of the Trump family, and photographs of Donald Trump and deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, reappeared on social media following the release of a July 7, 2025, Department of Justice memo stating that a DOJ review found no incriminating "client list" related to Epstein and no credible evidence that he had blackmailed prominent people.