When did rumors about Donald Trump avoiding showers first emerge?

Executive summary — a short, clear answer to when the rumors began

Rumors that Donald Trump “avoids showers” or has chronic personal-hygiene issues cannot be pinned to a single originating moment in the available record; the theme appears as discrete threads across several years. Early public references date to allegations tied to the 2016 Steele dossier and subsequent media discussion, resurfaced by commentary and social-media memes in late 2023, while Trump's own complaints about showerheads and water pressure predate and complicate the narrative ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The claim has been recycled and reframed by partisan sources and entertainers, so the earliest traceable spark in mainstream circulation is the 2016 dossier allegation, but the specific “avoids showers” wording gained wider attention in late 2023 amid social-media amplification and new comments ^{[1] [4] [2]}.

1. How the allegation threads back to 2016 and a dossier that kept circulating

The oldest concrete public touchpoint identified in the assembled analyses is the 2016 Christopher Steele dossier’s lurid allegation about “golden showers,” which entered mainstream discussion during and after the 2016 campaign and remained a reference point in later debunking and denials. Coverage recounting Trump’s repeated denials of those Steele-dossier allegations resurfaced in November 2023 when outlets reported on Trump denying such claims at a rally, prompting some commentators to link that history to ongoing rumors about his cleanliness ^{[1] [5]}. The dossier provided an early documented source that critics and satirists could latch onto, establishing a provenance for hygiene-focused stories even though the dossier’s specific claim differs from a simple “avoids showers” assertion. The dossier therefore constitutes the earliest traceable origin in the available materials, not necessarily a definitive proof of the behavior.

2. The late-2023 spike: politicians, comedians and a viral meme

A second, more recent wave that explicitly framed Trump as avoiding showers clustered in December 2023, when public figures and former aides — including Adam Kinzinger, Kathy Griffin, and Anthony Scaramucci in some accounts — floated or repeated claims about body odor and shower avoidance, and the internet responded with the hashtag #TrumpSmells. Fact-checking and roundup pieces published in late 2023 collated those comments and identified a social-media uproar; those articles date to December 2023 and early 2024 and treat the discussion as newly prominent ^{[2] [4]}. This episode amplified the rumor beyond the Steele-dossier context because it involved named contemporary celebrities and former insiders repeating or insinuating the behavior, which fueled meme culture and wider public awareness.

3. Trump’s own shower complaints muddy the timeline and motive analysis

Separately, Donald Trump’s public complaints about low‑flow showerheads and water-pressure rules predate the rumor cycles and appear in media reporting from around 2020–2021 and later discussions into 2025. These statements concern the quality of showers and how they affect his hair, not allegations that he avoids bathing; nonetheless, they have been repurposed by critics and satirists to suggest an aversion to normal showering behavior ^{[3] [6]}. The existence of these genuine, public comments complicates attribution: critics point to them as circumstantial support, while defenders say the showerhead remarks are being mischaracterized. The showerhead complaints are documented separately and should not be conflated uncritically with claims about avoidance.

4. Fact-checkers, gaps and what the sources do not show

Across the assembled analyses, several sources explicitly state they do not establish a clear origin date for “avoids showers” claims; many pieces are reactive, collecting later comments rather than tracing the rumor’s provenance comprehensively ^{[4] [7] [8]}. Multiple fact-checks note the absence of verifiable contemporaneous reporting that someone observed repeated shower avoidance, and instead show a chain of allegations, denials, jokes and social-media amplification. This pattern means the claim’s persistence owes as much to iterative repetition and partisan commentary as to any single verified incident. Any definitive timeline must therefore distinguish between an allegation’s first appearance, its amplification moments, and documented firsthand reporting — the current record supplies the first two but not reliable firsthand confirmation.

5. The big picture: partisan amplification, satire, and the limits of proof

The rumor’s lifecycle demonstrates how a sensational allegation can evolve from a dossier item to social-media meme through commentary by political foes, comedians, and former aides; each actor brings different incentives—political damage, entertainment value, or insider gossip—to the narrative ^{[1] [2]}. This mix of agendas accelerates spread while reducing evidentiary quality, producing multiple, dateable spikes (2016 dossier, late 2023 social-media wave) but leaving a gap where neutral, verifiable reporting is absent. The most supportable conclusion from the available sources is that the earliest documented germ was the 2016 dossier, and the clearest surge in explicit “avoids showers” talk arrived in December 2023, with ongoing references thereafter tied to Trump’s own public remarks about shower technology rather than confirmed observations of chronic avoidance ^{[1] [2] [3]}.