The wife of the former US president is not very verbose, but some of her actions and facts from her biography speak for themselves. On Mrs. Trump’s birthday, we tell you the most interesting things about her.
She is the only US first lady whom the electorate has seen naked
Three years before meeting Donald Trump, in 1996, Melania posed nude for the French men’s glossy magazine Max. The girl was then 25 years old. In a candid photo shoot, she appeared completely naked on a bed with Scandinavian model Emma Eriksson. The pictures were taken by French photographer Ale de Basseville, who called the photos “beautiful and not pornographic.”
In 2016, the American tabloid New York Post found these pictures and put them on the cover of their July issue with the caption “Melania Trump like you’ve never seen her before.”
It is worth paying tribute to the American public – after this publication, no one accused Melania of frivolous behavior. For a long time, social networks were filled with comments that candid photographs from the past are not a reason to condemn the wife of a US presidential candidate. Donald Trump himself reacted more than calmly to the publication: “In Europe, photographs like these are considered very fashionable and very common,”.
She speaks five languages
And at the same time he does not have a higher education. Surprising but true. Melania was born in Sevnica in Slovenia (former Yugoslavia). She is Slovenian by nationality and her native language is Slovenian. Since childhood, she also knew Serbian and German. At the age of 16, she entered the University of Ljubljana, majoring in architecture and design. But already in my first year I met the photographer Stane Erko. From that time on, her studies were abandoned, and the girl began a fast-paced modeling career. She dropped out of university and went to live and work in Paris, where she learned French. In 1996, Melania again changed her place of residence – this time she set about conquering New York itself. And here it is – fluent English. By the way, it was in New York that that very “nude” photo shoot took place.
She dreamed of becoming the next Jacqueline Kennedy
Pamela Keogh, who wrote the biographical book “Jackie Kennedy. Secrets of Style,” expressed the opinion that Melania, like the heroine of her story, is an ideal wife – “beautiful, smart, has her own opinion and can give the right advice.” Back in 2000, Mrs. Trump told the New York Times that if she ever became First Lady, she would be “very traditional, like Betty Ford or Jacqueline Kennedy.” Probably Melania already knew about her husband’s secret ambitions. Nearly two decades later, her prediction came true.
Having settled in the White House, Melania rarely spoke on her own behalf, but she still attracts enormous attention to her person. She has also noticed several fashion mistakes (from a “scandalous” parka to heels in disaster areas), but, one way or another, the style of the ex-president’s wife is always precise and elegant. And it certainly deserves to go down in history, just like Jackie Kennedy’s style.
She “wrested” Donald Trump from the heiress of a cosmetics empire
Melania Knauss (the future Trump) met Donald when she was 28 years old. It happened in 1998 at the Manhattan club Kit Kat at a party by Paolo Zampolli, the founder of the modeling agency ID Models Management. Trump was then with his companion Selina Midelfart, the daughter of businessman Finn Erik Midelfart, the head of a large Norwegian cosmetics concern. The family business had already passed into the hands of Selina. Donald, seeing Melania, was distracted from his companion and asked for the phone number of Miss Knauss, but she refused, since she had already heard about the adventures of the loving billionaire.
But she wrote down Donald’s number. “If I gave him my phone number, I would become one of those women he calls. It’s no secret that rich people have several mobile numbers, and which one he gives to his new girlfriend speaks volumes. He then gave me all his numbers,” Mrs. Trump said.
The Clintons were guests at her wedding
At the wedding of Miss Knauss and Mr. Trump, among the 350 guests were Bill Clinton, who had already left the post of US President, and his wife Hillary. Then, judging by the gossip columns, the future rivals were very nice to each other. History repeated itself in its own way 13 years later, when Mr. and Mrs. Clinton came to the Trumps’ inauguration after Donald’s victory in the presidential election.
By the way, the bride’s outfit was truly precious. Its cost was $100,000. What was the cost of the crystals alone that strewn the dress – there were 500 of them in total. It took craftsmen from the house of Christian Dior 550 hours to embroider the dress of the future Mrs. Trump with jewels. It was crowned with a train, the length of which was 4.8 meters. By the way, the dress turned out to be more than heavy – it weighed 20 kilograms. The bride quickly got tired of this outfit and was relieved to change it to a lighter dress from Vera Wang in the Greek style – with an open top and a form-fitting figure.
She is the only US First Lady to have participated in beauty pageants and acted in commercials.
In 1992, Melania Trump took second place in the Face of the Year competition in Slovenia. And that was just the beginning. Everything turned out very successfully for the aspiring model: she was popular with fashion magazines and brands, and the best fashion photographers loved her. After meeting Donald, the girl received even more attention. She has appeared on the pages of such publications as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Elle, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, InStyle Weddings. Many world-famous brands invited her to participate in filming. One example is an advertising campaign for the insurance company Aflac. It is difficult to remember which other First Ladies could boast of such a thing.
However, Melania herself emphasizes that she was no less successful as a woman – that is, as a wife and mother. Among other things, Melania had her own jewelry business and designed watches. She also released her own cosmetic line.
She was the most unpopular wife of a presidential candidate in the last several elections.
This data was announced by The Washington Post. In August 2016, it conducted a traditional survey among Americans: respondents were asked which of those close to those running for US President they liked most. Thus, Bill Clinton, the husband of Hillary, who was running for the presidency, was supported by more than half of those surveyed. While Melania was only in second place.
“Melania Trump’s popularity is lower than almost all the other half of the candidates in the election year. The most popular over all the years of the survey is the wife of George Bush Sr. – Barbara. Michelle Obama also appeared at the top of this rating,” wrote the National Post.
She considers her husband’s main drawback to be his addiction to Twitter (but now Donald has definitely gotten rid of it)
At one of the meetings with voters, Melania was asked about her husband’s bad habits, which he should give up. And without hesitation she replied: “Tweeting.” According to Melania, Donald Trump devotes too much time to social networks. She, of course, also has an account, but she used it without much enthusiasm.
Donald Trump himself said more than once during the election race that his wife constantly corrects him with the words “act like a president,” “think like a president.”
However, Donald became president, but his love for Twitter remained. The head of the White House expressed his thoughts to an audience of millions almost every day, and his messages regularly became an independent news feed. However, the second presidential race with Trump’s participation led to a sad result for him – Twitter management decided to permanently ban Donald. So now Melania no longer has to fight her husband’s “bad habit.”
She is the only US First Lady born in a communist country.
Melania, born in Yugoslavia in 1970, during the reign of communist Josip Tito, boldly declares herself as the First Lady, who was born and lived her entire childhood in a state where the communist spirit reigned. True, it was very different from what was happening in the USSR in the same years, however, Mrs. Trump managed to taste all the delights of the political system of her homeland.
She is also the second foreign-born wife of a US president. The first was Louisa Adams, the English wife of the sixth US President John Quincy, who served from 1825 to 1829.
She knows how to save the day (and has her own opinion)
Her competent reaction and answers more than once helped Donald Trump regain the trust of the electorate. So, in particular, Melania was more than once accused of having too quickly forgotten that she herself was a visitor, and not a native American, and therefore could show understanding to those who also want to get to the States. However, Melania skillfully parried these reproaches: “I did not break the law when I immigrated to the United States. And I never had any thoughts of staying here without documents.” Mrs. Trump was equally unfazed when asked to comment on “insults against Mexicans”—in one of his speeches, Trump called those crossing the border illegally “criminals.” “I don’t feel this is an insult to the Mexican people,” Melania replied then. — We were talking about “illegal migrants.”
In October 2016, The Washington Post published an audio recording from 2005 in which Trump made a number of disparaging remarks about women. He could well have paid for this record with his chances of winning the presidential race. It’s impressive how intelligently Melania responded to this. Mrs. Trump commented with great indignation on her husband’s words regarding his past relationships with women. She called the comments “not inappropriate and offensive,” especially to her. “This is out of character for the person I know. “He has the heart and mind of a leader,” Melania Trump noted and expressed hope that people will accept Donald’s apology. And the voting results confirmed her hopes.
Since then, Mrs. Trump has had to deal with the consequences of her husband’s rash decisions more than once. She herself was often the target of hatred, especially for her stubborn silence in response to the growing #Metoo movement in the United States. She did not receive any comments from her and the women’s accusations against Donald himself. And, oddly enough, this policy worked: passions subsided over time, and Melania did not even have to intervene.
Another issue is her husband’s immigration policy, which in the summer of 2018 resulted in the children of undocumented migrants being separated from their parents at the US border. Here, quite unexpectedly, the First Lady, along with other ex-White House mistresses, not only intervened, but also publicly condemned the administration’s actions. “I saw parents breaking up with their children, and for me it was unacceptable. It broke my heart. “I spoke on my own behalf and went to the border,” Melania admitted in an interview with ABC. On the other hand, at the same time the First Lady hastened to explain her husband’s actions in order to smooth out criticism against him: “He believes in the same thing as I do. Regarding chain migration, he is not going to break it completely. We just need to check people, know that they believe in our system.”