There May Be a Hidden Meaning Behind Prince Harry's Odd Hand Gesture With Melania Trump

There May Be a Hidden Meaning Behind Prince Harry's

Odd Hand Gesture With Melania Trump

By Suzannah Weiss

September 25, 2017 12:20 pm

Pinterest

PHOTO: Getty Images

We can now add Prince Harry to the list of celebs theorized to be shading the Trumps with their body language. Photos making the rounds on social media show a meeting between the British royal and Melania Trump at Toronto's Invictus Games—and it looked awkward, to put it mildly.

Harry had his middle finger, ring finger, and thumb tucked into his jacket for what seemed to be a very long time. A video shows him posing for photos with the First Lady, and then turning toward her as he keeps his fingers firmly tucked in. He's barely smiling, and her own smile looks forced too.

Twitter users couldn't help but notice the lack of warmth and overall weirdness of the interaction. But is there actually any animosity between these two, or are we reading too deeply into it? We asked Patti Wood, body language expert and author of Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma, to weigh in.

There really was something off about Harry's body language, Wood says. He often holds his hand in his jacket, she explains—but never that high up, or with his fingers in such an unusual configuration. A hand up in front of the body is known as a "comfort cue," she says. "You're protecting vital organs." In other words, at the very least, Harry's defenses are up.

Some also couldn't help but notice that Harry's fingers are in a shape known as the devil's horn, which is meant to ward off evil spirits or diseases. "That is actually the devil's horn," says Wood. "Whether that's intentional or not, I don't know." She added that it isn't a position your hand naturally falls into, which would indicate some sort of intention—whether that's to ward off evil or just protect oneself. "He often smiles in photos," she adds. "He's a very happy person, and he's not smiling."

Wood also observed how tense Melania looked in the pictures, with her arms close to her body and her jaw and neck muscles tight. "If you look at her eyes, she's giving a glare to the media," she said.

So, while we can't confirm the theory that Harry's treating Melania as an evil force to ward off, we can say with some certainty that both of them are feeling pretty awkward—maybe even as awkward as they look.

Link to article - https://www.glamour.com/story/there-may-be-a-hidden-meaning-behind-prince-harrys-odd-hand-gesture-with-melania-trump


Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Body Language Experts Explain Prince Harry's Strange Pose with Melania Trump

Body Language Experts Explain

Prince Harry’s Strange Pose with Melania Trump

A picture is worth a thousand words. But some onlookers apparently thought this one, of Prince Harry and Melania Trump at the Invictus Games in Toronto over the weekend, is worth 666. 
Harry and the first lady posed for a series of photos together before sitting down for a chat. Trump stood with her arms at her sides, while Harry’s hand was half-tucked into his jacket in a very unusual way: His ring and middle fingers were tucked inside his coat along with his thumb, while he held his pinky and pointer fingers outside. 

His unusual gesture ― and whether or not it was intentional ― became a hot topic over the weekend, even eclipsing Harry’s first official appearance with his American girlfriend Meghan Markle. People on Twitter and some media outlets noted it looks like Harry was giving a symbol of the devil, either signaling that he himself is the devil or that the spirit of the devil surrounded him. 

But two body language experts think the gesture was misread in two very different ways. Patti Wood, body language expert and author of Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language & Charisma, told HuffPost that while Harry has held his jacket in photos before, this specific hand position is new.

“This is called the horn or the devil’s horn, and what people are saying in the media about it is not correct,” she said. “It is not a sign that he’s the devil, but rather a warning off of evil spirits. It’s a protective gesture against evil or darkness and illness.” 

Huh. Wood said putting one’s hand on one’s stomach is an act of self-comfort, and she has previously noticed other world leaders exhibiting self-comfort in photo ops with President Donald Trump.

“I’ve seen world leaders in photo shoots with Trump and I see a lot of what are called self-comfort cues,” she said. “This would be considered one of those. It looks like the devil’s horn but it is also hand to belly,” she said. “At the very least it would be a comfort cue, and show a lot of tension and a need to protect his central core.” 

Joe Navarro, body language expert and author of What Every Body is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People, is skeptical of reading any intention in Harry’s body language. He pointed out to HuffPost that a photo is a moment in time, and a number of factors could have led to this particular positioning. 

“Had the photographers loitered too long? Is there something else going on?” he asked, adding, “I have to wonder, was he going to unbutton his jacket and then changed his mind? Was he in prep for sitting and then they asked him to stand again to do more photos? To me, you can’t draw too many inferences from the photo. I wouldn’t personally read too much into that.”
But both experts agree that there is a level of tension visible in Harry, and both pointed out the prince usually looks much more relaxed and happy in such situations.

“There was some psychological discomfort,” Navarro said. “The look of his face, the look of his hand is very unusual, except for the fact that he and his brother have a tendency to cover their belly which is a self-soothing behavior to deal with a bit of tension.”

  

“His normal facial expression is actually typically a smile, which is wonderful and warm and engaging,” Wood said. “Here, the mouth is more closed, lips more pulled back and he’s not smiling.”
Wood also noted that Melania Trump, who kept her arms pressed closely to her body the whole time (“a fear response”), looked tense, too.

“If you look at their smiles, hers has enormous amount of tension. Her look is slitted eyes, closed eyes, which we do in tension. We also close our eyes when we want to attack.”

Still, Navarro was firm that when it comes to Harry, we can’t draw conclusions from a weird-looking hand position.
“All we can say is that it is unusual, but we can’t automatically say he intended it to be this or that,” he said.

That didn’t stop Twitter users from saying it. They flooded the site with responses to the awkward photos, with many suggesting Harry was sending a subliminal message. 

Link to Huffington Post article - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/prince-harry-melania-trump-hand-gesture_us_59c90057e4b01cc57ff3975a?woc


Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Melania Trump Slaps President's Hand Away to Say "She Won't Be Treated as a Child," Says Body Language Expert, Patti Wood

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/melania-trump-donald-slap-hand-israel-visit-us-first-lady-president-child-treated-body-language-a7750871.html

Yesterday US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.

As always, the eyes of the public were watching their every move, and much has been made of a particular public moment between the couple.

After disembarking from the plane, the President walks ahead of his wife and holds his hand back for her to take Melania, however, swats it away, in what appears to be a display of couple disunity. But what does this mean? 

We asked body language expert Patti Wood what her opinion is.

Wood believes the First Lady’s action was deliberate: “He was walking way in front to show his power and putting his hand back to lead her like a child, her hand went under his and up and out to say ‘No, you can’t lead me like a child.’” 

However it’s also possible Melania batted her husband away because she was cautious about showing public affection in Tel Aviv.

The incident could be a further sign of how the Trump’s relationship has changed since becoming the First Couple.

Wood points out that before the residency, she thinks their relationship was “high contact,” and “highly sexualised, with him touching intimate zones of her body in public freely and easily, typically as he smiled and even gloated.”

In the past few months, however, we’ve seen Trump often powering out in front of his wife and leaving her behind. “He wants to be seen as a president. Not as part of a presidential couple,” Wood explained to The Independent. 

But in February, we saw the opposite happen: when Melania went to take her husband’s hand, he simply patted and dropped it, suggesting he didn’t want to hold hands.

Wood believes, on the whole, that Trump is calling the shots when it comes to their public image: “He is determining how they will present themselves. 

“She tries to hold his hand at times in an affectionate way, which makes me think that was their normal way of walking. She is used to affection and often leans it to get it, but we see him turn away or smack her hand away in an admonishing way. 

“There are also several photos where her response to his behaviour is hurt or anger.” 

According to Wood, Melania’s body language around Trump has changed a lot in the past few months - she used to be “a model married to someone that desired her,” and her body language was “very loose, open and comfortable in her own skin.”

But now, Wood says Melania has become someone “whose shoulders go down, whose mouth turns down, who gives furtive, down-gazing looks, and who is tense, tight, small and unhappy.”

In fact, so much has been made of Melania’s facial expressions that ‘Sad Melania’ has become a meme, and many people believe she is unhappy in the marriage.

Melania looks like someone reluctantly serving out a community service sentencing for making a poor life choice #TrumpTrip

Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.