On Monday night Tony-winning actor Laura Benanti paid Stephen Colbert’s Late Show one last visit [in character as Melania Trump](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/07/laura-benanti-melania-trump-impression-late-show-stephen-colbert), bidding a musical farewell to the soon-to-be former FLOTUS. In a truly impressive pretaped song and dance number, Benanti’s Trump wonders what her life will look like after the White House. She realizes she should pull a reverse Joan Didion and go back to New York, the “Be Best-est city on earth!”
“I’m ditching that loser and moving back to New York, baby!” Benanti’s Melania declares. “The huge apple! The city that never sleeps with a porn star then lies to you about it! Being here makes me feel—which is something I don’t normally do.”
Benanti then puts her full Broadway talents on display, singing a musical parody set to Beauty and the Beast’s “Belle.” She flutters her way through Times Square—a neighborhood New Yorkers just love—reminiscing about her time as First Lady. The song runs through her greatest hits: the leaked tape where she says she hates Christmas, her insipid Be Best campaign, and the infamous “I Really Don’t Care” jacket that sums up her flimsy White House run.
She fantasizes about her return to the city, far away from the political responsibilities in D.C., only for her delusion to slowly fade away. New Yorkers, Benanti’s Melania realizes, already hate her just as much as they hate her husband. Or, as the song puts it, as much as Melania hates Ivanka. So, she’ll ultimately have to schlep down to Florida with the rest of the clan. “Goodbye forever, insincerely!” Benanti’s Melania bids the city.
Benanti’s existential farewell doubles as a fitting sendoff for the Broadway talent, who’s played Melania on the Late Show for the last four years. “I want to thank Laura Benanti for her service to a grateful nation,” Colbert said after the musical number aired.
On Tuesday, Benanti herself tweeted a thank you to Colbert, as well as to writer Michael Cruz Kayne and senior producer and director Jake Plunkett for the “epic sendoff.”
“Thank you @StephenAtHome and everyone at @colbertlateshow for welcoming me into your family,” she tweeted. “I love you all, and will miss you terribly.”
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