Melania Trump Is Threatening to Sue a School That Mocked Her English on a Billboard

The Američki Institut (“American Institute”), an English language school in Zagreb, Croatia, recently advertised itself with billboards featuring Melania Trump. “Just imagine how far you can go with a little bit of English,” the billboards read. This message refers to the fact that Trump was born in Slovenia, came to the U.S. to work as a model in her twenties, and now is the First Lady.

Trump apparently was not fond of the billboards, and her lawyer Natasa Pirc-Musar threatened the Američki Institut with a lawsuit if they didn’t take it down. The school cooperated, and the billboards are no longer up in Zagreb. He also ordered them to delete Facebook ads containing the same message. The school plans to put up new ads that don’t use Trump’s image.

“I’m satisfied with the fact that the school admitted that they violated the law and that they are ready to remove the billboards and (Facebook) ads,” Pirc-Musar told the Associated Press. “We are still analyzing possible further legal steps.”

Ivis Buric, a spokesperson for the Američki Institut, apologized for the ads, which she said were “wildly successful” because of all the press they got. “We are very sorry that the billboards were misunderstood as something intended to mock the U.S. First Lady,” she told the Associated Press. “It was meant to be something positive, to show her as a role model.”

Buric further explained to CNBC that Trump was “the most recognized emigrant to the U.S. from this region,” and the billboard was not “some kind of political message” but rather “a conversation-starter, but nothing more than that.”