Twitter won’t remove naked photos of Melania Trump or suspend Cardi B for posting

Feud between singer and conservative commentator Candace Owens has escalated with both threatening to sue the other

Naked photos of Melania Trump published on Twitter by Cardi B during a clash over her Grammys performance don't violate the company's terms of service, according to a company spokesperson.

The rapper posted a full-frontal nude photo of the former first lady as her clash with conservative commentator Candace Owens spilt over from Fox News onto Twitter.

A spokesperson for Twitter told The Independent that while the company has a non-consensual nudity policy that would see an account immediately suspended, images previously published with the person's consent would not be against those rules.

The image dates back to a 1996 photoshoot published in a French magazine the following year. It resurfaced in The New York Post during the presidential campaign in 2016, and was previously shared to Twitter by Cardi in 2020, in a post that has since been removed.

Ms Trump was dragged into the dispute after Ms Owens described Cardi’s performance of WAP at the Grammys as the “weakening of American society” and the “corrosion” and “end of an empire”.

The two continued the back and forth on Twitter for hours until Ms Owens said she took issue with the singer being used to encourage young women to “strip themselves of dignity”.

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Cardi responded with the nude photo of the former first lady with the comment: “No! Candy, men treat women on how a woman allows a man to treat them”.

A second nude photo of Ms Trump posted by Cardi B was lightly censored, with the singer saying in an accompanying tweet that she didn’t know why Ms Owens was so bothered by “WAP”.

“I was just inspired by our former First Lady,” she said.

When Ms Owens asked why she was “obsessed” with the Trump family, Cardi said Ms Trump was her idol.

“She showed me I can be naked perform wap and still be a First Lady one day ! ... wait so only White women can be naked and show their sexuality and evolve in their 30s but I can’t ? Wow America is soo unfair. To think this was the land of the free,” she said.

The online clash continued to escalate after that with Ms Owens threatening to sue after Cardi posted an image of a tweet that claimed to show Ms Owens' husband cheated with her brother.

"I am 100% suing Cardi for that nonsense. You can’t just start throwing out wild lies against private members of my family because you’re upset someone called your out on your degenerate performance," Ms Owens said.

Cardi then threatened to counter sue for claiming she photoshopped the tweet.