Melania is seen for the first time in TEN DAYS as she attends Easter Brunch with Trump

Melania Trump came out of hiding to join her husband for Easter brunch at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, sitting at Donald Trump’s side in celebration of the holiday.

She and the former president walked into Mar-a-Lago’s ornate ballroom to a standing ovation from the crowd, videos posted online showed. The couple sat alone together with red velvet ropes shielding their large table from the rest of the holidaymakers.

Melania was seen chatting to Donald Trump, leaning over to talk to him during dinner.

Social media users posted pictures of the couple together in the ballroom. Mar-a-Lago hosts a lavish Easter brunch for its members—oysters, shrimp, and champagne—and there’s an Easter egg hunt on the club’s grounds for the kids.

It was the first time Melania had been seen at his side since her notable absence from Trump’s speech on Tuesday. He ranted against charges against him for falsifying company records in connection with hush money payments he allegedly made to porn star Stormy Daniels and a former doorman.

She had previously broken her radio silence online with a simple “Happy Easter!” to tweet. message.

For the Easter holidays, she wore a white dress with what appeared to be a floral pattern on the shoulder and down the middle. The former president wore a pink tie with his dark suit.

Melania, 52, clearly hadn’t followed her husband to New York City last week when he turned himself in to authorities and pleaded not guilty to 34 felonies. president gave a speech with a special shout out to all his children, but made no mention of his wife.

The only sign that the couple was okay was Viktor Knavs, Melania’s father, sitting between the former president’s two sons in the front row, a position of prominence that placed him right in the eye of the cameras.

It remains unclear why the former first lady was not there, but sources previously told DailyMail.com that she is hurt and angry over allegations that Trump had an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels as she faces a year and a half in prison. her dirty laundry is publicly aired as the New York criminal case continues.

Those who know the former first lady well now say she is choosing to stay out of the limelight to shield herself from news of her husband’s infidelity.

Before the charges were announced last week, a source told PEOPLE that Melania is “living her own life” and “still feels happy” in Mar-a-Lago, but remains “angry and doesn’t want to hear” about the alleged $130,000 in hush money to Daniels.

Lauren Wright, a political scientist at Princeton University, also told DailyMail.com that she “wasn’t surprised that Melania was nowhere to be found at her husband’s post-indictment speech.

During the Trump presidency, when the Stormy Daniels issue came up, Melania would somehow assert her independence, avoiding the subject or, most famously, contradicting those who claimed her feelings about knowing about the alleged extramarital altercation,” she noted. .

And Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former assistant and friend, said she believes Melania’s recent silence and disappearance from the scene was intentional.

“It’s her weapon of choice and her protective armor,” she says.

Melania previously went missing in January 2018, days after Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels was exposed by the Wall Street Journal.

At the time, the first lady canceled plans to accompany her husband to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

She blamed “planning and logistical problems.”