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Watch stage star Laura Benanti parody Beauty and the Beast with Melania Trump performance

‘There must be more than being his third wife!’

| London |

19 January 2021

Those plugged into the Broadway / late night panel show world may have known that five-time Tony Award nominee (and one-time winner) Laura Benanti has, for the last five years, taken on the role of First Lady Melania Trump on Stephen Colbert's weeknight talk show.

Last night marked Benanti's final appearance (according to Colbert), so Benanti decided to go out with a bang. Parodying the soon to be ex-First Lady, she performed a special twist on "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast, imagining what is going through Trump's head as she prepares to move out of the White House and back to the Big Apple.

The number reimagines Howard Ashman's lyrics to make them politically on the nose – in a way Ashman and Alan Menken would never have expected thirty years ago. One highlight is "There must be more than being his third wife!".

You can watch the video below – the performance starts around the 3 minute 54 seconds mark.

Benanti has performed in the likes of My Fair Lady, Nine, Gypsy, Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, She Loves Me and many more, and is also set to star in the new version of hit TV series Gossip Girl.

Beauty and the Beast will across the UK from summer 2021, with a brand-new production from the original team opening at Curve in Leicester.

Watch the video here: