It truly has become an escalating game of “follow the leader.” Congresswoman Lauren Boebert appeared to take her own ability to suffer embarrassing tan fails to new levels as she followed in the footsteps of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s desire to always look as bronzed as Donald Trump. Recent photographs posted to Instagram show a very dark Boebert posing with Dylan Mundt, who is the Chair of Colorado’s Douglas County Young Republicans, as well as with Hunter Rivera, who is a chairman of Colorado’s Weld County Republican party. In the photos, Boebert is noticeably darker than her young Republican party counterparts, drawing plenty of attention to herself, but mostly because it looks like she may have forgotten to say stop at the spray tan salon. However, Mundt made no mention of it, captioning the post by writing, “Great seeing [Lauren Boebert] and [Hunter Rivera] at the CD4 Reorg Meeting! These people are gonna take back Colorado!”
Colorado may be known for getting a good amount of sun, but Boebert’s skin has consistently proven that she is willing to go shade-for-shade with Trump. In another photo, Boebert again posed with some kids, this time wearing a cowboy hat and white shirt that really does a good job contrasting just how dramatic her tan is. Her fake tan appeared to up the ante with RFK Jr, who has debuted a sprayed-on tan that has grabbed plenty of attention -– including the time he showed up to the 2024 debates in his Trump-matching tan. Or the time he went shirtless at the gym and showed off not just his scorched body but also his ripped abs — one thing we’re pretty sure he has that Trump doesn’t.
Trump’s fake tan has a hold on the entire Republican party
At the end of the day, Lauren Boebert and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may be the frontrunners to copying Donald Trump’s fake tan, but his messaging has clearly filtered down through the party. There is Kimberly Guilfoyle, Trump’s former daughter-in-law-to-be, whose fake tan has actually begun to overtake Trump’s. Then there’s White House newcomer Karoline Leavitt. The youngest ever White House Press Secretary is new to the tanning wars, but Leavitt, too, has blundered her way into her own skin-tone fails as a very public-facing member of Trump’s team. One user on X, formerly Twitter, even compared Leavitt’s new White House look to a youthful, less made-up photo of her from 2017 and posted, “Does anyone else agree with me that Karoline Leavitt should stop slathering her whole face with massive amounts of makeup and go back to this?”
Trump’s spray-on influence has even reached beyond his employees. Just look at Fox News host Jesse Watters, who adopted a deadly combination of both camera-ready shine and an orange glow to create his own version of an embarrassing Trump-inspired tan. Despite how obviously fake Trump’s orange hue is, not a single person in his camp confirmed his tanning habits when The New York Times investigated. So while Boebert and RFK Jr. take stock of their shade and decide whether or not they want to go a little darker, the tragic truth is that we mocked up an image of Trump without all his makeup on -– and he actually looked better.
