Melania Trump (born Melanija Knavs; April 26, 1970) is a Slovenian-American former model who served as the first lady of the United States from 2017 to 2021 as the wife of President Donald Trump. She is the first naturalized citizen to become first lady and the second foreign-born first lady after Louisa Adams. She is also the second Catholic first lady after Jacqueline Kennedy.
Melanija Knavs was born in Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia, now part of present-day Slovenia, on April 26, 1970. Her father Viktor Knavs first worked as a chauffeur, and he eventually sold car parts for a state-owned vehicle manufacturer as he made connections with the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the national communist party. Her mother Amalija worked as a patternmaker at the children's clothing manufacturer Jutranjka in Sevnica. In Sevnica, the family lived in the state-run housing complex Naselje Heroja Maroka. She has an older sister, Ines, and an older half-brother from her father's previous relationship, Denis Cigelnjak, whom she reportedly has never met. Her father denied paternity of the boy, even after it was confirmed by a paternity test.
When Knavs was a teenager, she moved with her family to a two-story house in Sevnica. From her youth in Slovenia, Knavs was influenced by the United States: she described the presidency of Ronald Reagan as the beginning of a new era in her own country, and the debut of CNN International in 1985 gave her family access to American media. At the age of fifteen, Knavs moved to Ljubljana to attend the Secondary School for Design and Photography, attending the school until her graduation at nineteen. She was admitted despite the school's exclusivity, and she made the long commute from her hometown to the capital and back each day by train. After her first year, Melanija and Ines moved to the capital together. After graduating, Knavs enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture and Civil and Geodetic Engineering to further study design.
During the 2016 presidential election, Trump became the only candidate's spouse to have a negative approval rating since polling began in 1988. Her approval rating stood at 36–37% in the months leading up to becoming first lady in January 2017, but it increased to 57% in a CNN poll in April 2018 after she received public sympathy amid allegations that her husband had committed adultery. Trump finished her tenure in 2021 as the least popular first lady since polling began with a rating of 42%. Multiple polls during her tenure as first lady showed her as the most popular member of the Trump family.
Knavs was discovered by a well known Slovenian fashion photographer, Stane Jerko, when she was sixteen, after modeling in a school-sponsored show. At the time, she had wanted to be a fashion designer rather than a model. Knavs won a modeling contest with the Italian studio Cinecittà that entitled her to a movie role, but she rejected the prize after she was sexually propositioned by a producer. As her modeling career progressed, Knavs took on an alternate spelling of her name, Melania Knauss, and she traveled Europe to find modeling work. With the exception of a few close relatives, she did not maintain contact with anyone she knew in Slovenia. In 1992, Knauss was named runner-up in the Jana Magazine "Look of the Year" contest, which promised its top three contestants an international modeling contract. She signed with RVR Reclame in Milan, but she left the organization a few months later.
Knauss spent the following years traveling Europe for modeling jobs, including one in which she portrayed the first female president of the United States in 1993. Around age 23 or 24, her career was successful enough that she could make Paris her primary residence, where she lived with her roommate Victoria Silvstedt. Knauss modeled for fashion houses in Paris and Milan, where in 1995 she met Metropolitan Models co-owner Paolo Zampolli, a friend of her future husband Donald Trump, who was on a scouting trip in Europe. Zampolli became one of the few people who was involved in Knauss's life long-term.
Melanija Knavs was born in Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia) where she began working as a fashion model at the age of 16. She changed the spelling of her name to Melania Knauss, and she traveled to Milan and Paris to seek modeling work until she met Paolo Zampolli, who hired her and sponsored her immigration to the United States in 1996. She continued working as a model in Manhattan, where Zampolli introduced her to the real estate developer Donald Trump in 1998. They began dating, and she began adjusting to a more lavish lifestyle. He worked to get her more modeling jobs, and she supported him during his 2000 presidential campaign. Melania and Donald Trump married in 2005, and they had a son, Barron Trump, the following year. She dedicated most of her time to Barron during his infancy, spending less time working or accompanying her husband at events. She started her own jewelry brand, Melania, in 2009.
Zampolli urged Knauss to travel to the United States, where he said he would like to represent her. In 1996, Knauss moved to Manhattan. By this time, she was already 26 years old, much older than most aspiring models. Zampolli encouraged Knauss to live near and socialize with people in the fashion industry, and he arranged for her to share an apartment with photographer Matthew Atanian in Zeckendorf Towers in Union Square. Her rent was taken from her pay with Zampolli's agency. Once she arrived in the United States, she returned to her home country only sparingly and only for short periods of time. She lived a healthy lifestyle, managing her diet carefully, and she avoided the drinking and partying that often consumed the lives of the models around her. She did not lead an active social life and only went out on rare occasions. Knauss was featured in a sexually explicit photo shoot for a 1997 issue of Max, a French men's magazine with another female model. The photos were shot by the photographer Alexandre Ale de Basseville, and the work was unpaid, instead promising Knauss exposure in a prominent magazine. The photos were largely forgotten until they were published by the New York Post in 2016.
In September 1998, Zampolli introduced Knauss to the real estate mogul Donald Trump at a party. Trump had a date to the event, Celina Midelfart. When he asked Knauss for her phone number, she refused. Instead, she insisted that he give her his own number. He passed her test when he gave her multiple personal numbers instead of an office number. She later said that giving her own number would make her "just one of the women he calls". The exact details of when and where this took place are unclear, though the Kit Kat Club is often described as where they met.
Knauss continued her modeling career after meeting Donald Trump, though she took fewer jobs as time went on and she dedicated more time to him. In 1999, the couple gained attention after an interview with shock jock Howard Stern on his show, in which he asked them lewd sexual questions. Trump often brought Knauss to meetings to show her off, praising her beauty. He did not let her participate in the business, citing the conflict he had with his first wife after giving her an executive role.
Knauss was one of the first models recruited to Trump's modeling agency, Trump Model Management, after its creation in February 1999. The following months, she appeared in several magazines and advertisements organized by individuals close to Trump. While Trump was organizing his campaign, Knauss appeared the February Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. The image featured her in a bikini alongside a large inflatable whale, and the shoot was run by Antoine Verglas, an associate of Zampolli's. Shortly after the shoot, Verglas called Knauss back for another project where he had her pose nude in a Bond girl aesthetic. Trump had lobbied for her inclusion in a GQ spread, and her relationship with Trump allowed the shoot access to Trump's Boeing 727. Images from the shoot were featured in the January edition of GQ magazine. At the time, Trump's involvement was not made known. She then appeared in another sexualized photo shoot where she was posted in a mock up of the Oval Office.
Trump announced his candidacy for the Reform Party presidential nomination on October 7, 1999. Knauss adamantly supported the move. When asked by The New York Times what her role would be if Trump were to become president, Knauss replied: "I would be very traditional, like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy". Knauss saw extensive media attention as tabloids considered the idea of a model as first lady.
In January 2000, news broke that Knauss and Trump broke up, with conflicting accounts of who ended the relationship. Many photos and publicity pieces the two had done together were quickly edited before publication to accommodate the change. They kept in contact, and they reunited a few months later. Knauss received her green card in 2001, granting her permanent residency in the United States. Knauss and Trump moved in together at Trump Tower in 2002. She made her first appearance on Trump's game show The Apprentice in April 2004 when an episode had the contestants visit their penthouse.
Trump proposed to Knauss on April 26, 2004, on her birthday as they were leaving to attend the Met Gala. He reasoned that he was more willing to wed as she had not insisted on marriage, and he felt she was an influence in the success he had seen over the previous years. Knauss was more compatible with Trump than his previous wives, as she did not have the ambition of his first wife and did not cause public drama like his second wife. Knauss fulfilled his desire for a wife who was self-confident but supported him silently. She also signed his prenuptual agreement without issue. A few months before the wedding, Knauss traveled to Paris with Anna Wintour and André Leon Talley to find a wedding dress, and Knauss decided on a dress by John Galliano. In the days leading up to the wedding, she appeared on the front cover of Vogue in her dress.
On October 7, a month before the election, the Access Hollywood tape was leaked. The tape had been recorded in 2005, shortly after their marriage, and it featured audio of Donald making controversial remarks about his treatment of women. Immediately after its release, the campaign's primary concern was Melania's reaction. An anonymous person who was with Donald when the news broke reported that "red was coming up his neck to his ears". It took him two hours before he went to see Melania. Upon their meeting, Melania reportedly told him "Now you could lose, you could have blown this for us", and then left the room after he apologized.
Trump and Knauss married on January 22, 2005 at the Bethesda-by-the-Sea church in Palm Beach, Florida. The ceremony was followed by a reception in the ballroom at Donald's Mar-a-Lago estate, which Melania planned with Preston Bailey. Numerous celebrities were present, including musicians, athletes, media executives, and television personalities. She had one bridesmaid, her sister Ines, who had moved to New York so they could be closer together. Knauss arranged all of the details of the wedding with her planner. She let Trump make decisions about the event, but she refused his suggestion that the wedding be broadcast on NBC.
A scandal broke in January 2018 when it was alleged that Donald had had an extramarital affair with the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels. The affair was said to have taken place in July 2006, after the Trumps' marriage and the birth of their son. Melania's public appearances became more infrequent after the news emerged, and she canceled several events that she was to attend with her husband. This included the 2018 State of the Union Address, where Melania made the unprecedented decision to ride separately from him on the way there. Michael Cohen, who had arranged the silencing of the alleged affair, stated that his greatest regret was lying to Melania, saying that she didn't deserve it. The next month, the story of a second affair in 2006 with the model Karen McDougal was made public. To Melania, the worst part was that she felt Donald had publicly humiliated her.
On March 20, 2006, Donald and Melania had a son, Barron William Trump. Melania chose her son's middle name, while Donald chose his first name. Donald had previously used the name Barron as a pseudonym for when he posed as his own public relations agent. After Barron was born, Melania was active in his life and accordingly spent less time attending events with her husband. Donald had made it clear to her that if they had a child, he would not be actively involved in the child's life. Melania later said she approved of this, stating that she "didn't want him changing diapers or putting Barron to bed". She avoided the use of nannies, with a few exceptions in Barron's earliest years, insisting on raising him herself. This lessened social activity meant that Donald began courting supermodels again, which made Melania uncomfortable, though she did not know about the women who later alleged that they had extramarital affairs with him.
Melania stayed out of the public spotlight after she settled into her life as a Trump, excepting occasional charity work and an appearance in an Aflac commercial. She became a citizen of the United States on July 28, 2006. She then sponsored her parents using the "chain migration" immigration process that her husband later repeatedly criticized. Besides her American citizenship, both she and her son maintain multiple citizenship in Slovenia. Spending most of her time at Trump residences, she rarely kept companions besides her parents and her son. When she was with her husband, they watched films together, including their favorite films Gone with the Wind and Sunset Boulevard.
As her son reached childhood, Melania found herself with more time for other pursuits. She trademarked her name, Melania, in 2009 as a jewelry brand, which she used to sell less expensive jewelry pieces on QVC. She was intentional about not using the Trump name in her branding, correcting reporters who called it Melania Trump. She drew the designs herself, which were based on three places where she had lived: New York, Palm Beach, and Paris. Over the following years, she released additional Melania collections, and they sold out each time.
Melania then introduced a line of caviar-infused skincare products under the brand Melania Marks Skincare in 2011. The brand never launched. It brought about a legal case when the company selling the products, New Sunshine, underwent management changes and voided the contract. The company alleged that one executive had given a sweetheart deal to the Trumps because he was a family friend. The case was decided in Trump's favor, and the amount to be paid to her was settled out of court. She had initially sued the company for $50 million in lost revenue. Rededicating herself to parenting, Melania eventually ended the production of her jewelry brand.
Melania Trump's career as a model was an advantage during the campaign, as she was prepared for photographers and did not need to hire a fashion consultant. As a model, she was required to be deliberate in all of her movement, including how she stood and walked. She resented being called shy during the campaign, saying that this was an impression spread by people who only briefly met her and wanted their "15 minutes of fame". Melania's earliest speaking appearances in November 2015 and February 2016 were prompted by Donald calling on her to speak to the crowd. Both times, she only said a few sentences. Her first scheduled speech during the campaign did not take place until April 2016.
When the Trump administration's White House website was posted, Melania's biographical information caused controversy because it listed her jewelry business. Though it had already ceased operation, critics alleged that it was an attempt to promote her business with government resources. Another allegation of attempting to profit from her role as first lady came up in February, when she sued the Daily Mail for libel after it alleged in 2016 that she had worked for an escort agency. The suit was initially for lost career opportunities, but this was changed to emotional distress when she received questions about why she expected to have career opportunities as first lady.
An attack ad against the Trumps was produced by super PAC that supported Donald's opponent Ted Cruz featuring Melania's nude GQ photo with the caption "Meet Melania Trump. Your next first lady. Or you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday", intensifying the rivalry between the two candidates in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries. More scandalous nude images of Melania were published on the front page of the New York Post in July 2016 in a story titled "The Ogle Office". The images did not have a major effect on the campaign, as Melania was seen as the victim, but they were humiliating and she spent the following two months away from the public.
On July 18, 2016, Melania Trump gave a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention. A controversy emerged after it became apparent that a paragraph of the speech had been plagiarized from Michelle Obama's speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. When asked about it, Melania said she wrote the speech herself "with as little help as possible". No one in the Trump campaign had previewed the speech, when political campaigns typically have several people scrutinize such a speech. Donald was furious with his staff and felt he had failed Melania, while Melania took the gaffe personally and felt she had failed the campaign. It was the only major speech she delivered during the campaign. Two days later, Trump staff writer Meredith McIver took responsibility, saying there was a misunderstanding when Melania read passages of Obama's speech as examples. The speech also included a rare statement on her past, describing her family in Slovenia and her early modeling career. After giving the speech, Melania stayed out of public view until election day approached.
To protect use of her image and maintain an income, Melania licensed photos from her photoshoots through Getty Images. This allowed her to choose how they were used by reporters, and she received royalties for each use. The Office of Government Ethics reported that she made $100,000 to $1,000,000 in royalties in 2017, though other estimates put it at over $10,000,000.
Trump and her son, Barron, moved into the White House on June 11, 2017. Like they had throughout their marriage, Melania and Donald chose to sleep in separate bedrooms. In her first year, Melania gave only eight speeches, compared to 74 by Michelle Obama and 42 by Laura Bush. Instead of frequent public appearances, she communicated her activities through video. Most of Trump's appearances as first lady in 2017 were in Manhattan and Washington, and she typically spoke about women's and children's issues.
The inauguration of Donald Trump took place on January 20, 2017. After her husband was elected president, she announced that she would not move to Washington, D.C. with him, instead staying in Manhattan so Barron could finish the school year there. This also allowed her to introduce him to the White House gradually so as not to overwhelm him. During this time, Melania negotiated new terms for her prenuptial agreement with Donald to reflect the changes in their lives since it was signed and to ensure that Barron received a suitable inheritance.
On March 8, 2017, Trump hosted her first White House event, a luncheon for International Women's Day. She spoke to an audience of women about her life as a female immigrant and about working towards gender equality both domestically and abroad, noting the role of education as a tool against gender inequality. The Trumps visited Vatican City in May 2017. As Melania was visiting as a Catholic, Pope Francis blessed her rosary beads, and she placed flowers at the feet of a statue of the Madonna at the Vatican's Bambino Gesù children's hospital.
The first major public attention Melania received was after an incident in May 2017 while the Trumps were visiting Israel. Donald had forgotten that Melania was by his side when he was walking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and she fell behind from the group. Humiliated, she slapped away his hand when he reached out behind him to grab hers. This was the first time press coverage of Melania took notice of an independent streak.
Melania personally involved herself in decorations and planning within the White House. She was particular about how things were designed and arranged whenever events were planned, but she would take on a calm and relaxed demeanor once the event began. Whenever a foreign dignitary arrived at the White House, Melania had the Blue Room set aside where she ate lunch or drank tea with the dignitary's spouse. When choosing which presidential china set to use, Melania often chose the Clinton administration china with its gold embroidery. She held events less frequently than her predecessors, with a typical week featuring three or fewer events, all under one hour long. Among her most ambitious projects was planning the White House Christmas decorations in 2018. Moving away from traditional designs, she filled the East Collonnade with red cranberry-laden trees set atop a green carpet. The design was widely derided, which Melania ascribed to personal taste.
Trump was openly critical of her husband's "zero tolerance" policy of denying asylum at the Mexico–United States border in 2018, where children were being separated from their parents. Her official position was that she hated to see families separated and hoped for successful immigration reform. Out of public view, she made her opposition clear to the president and influenced his decision to end it. Leaked tapes in 2020 featured Melania making statements defending some of the practices, expressing grief about family separation but questioning the validity of asylum claims and dismissing concerns that children were kept in substandard conditions.
Melania learned in April 2018 that she was afflicted with kidney disease, but she only told her parents, her husband, and her sister. On May 14, she began treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. While her husband had wished to join her, his presence would have risked the press discovering her condition. The official statement said that she underwent an embolization, a minimally invasive procedure that deliberately blocks a blood vessel. A statement was released after the procedure was finished without complication, and she recovered in the hospital over the following five days. The extended stay led to false rumors and conspiracy theories that she had gotten plastic surgery. After leaving the hospital, she continued to stay out of the public eye until the beginning of June. At this point, the president let slip that the surgery had been more serious than initially suggested.
On May 7, 2018, Trump held a press conference in the White House Rose Garden to announce her official public initiative as first lady, the Be Best awareness campaign. The initiative was created to support the welfare of children, advocate against cyberbullying, and prevent opioid abuse. The initiative's name drew ridicule in the press for its grammatical structure. Instead of creating new programs like previous first ladies' projects, Be Best promoted existing initiatives and organizations that worked toward the cause. Public awareness of the initiate remained low, and it was often regarded solely as an anti-cyberbullying campaign.
Those around Melania noticed that she was generally happier by mid-2018. By this time, she had reached a more advantageous marital agreement that ensured Barron would be given a fair inheritance. Her public position, and the corresponding influence she had over her husband's political career, had given her the advantage in negotiations. After several months of problems, Melania received positive coverage for a large custom-made white hat that she wore during a visit by French president Emmanuel Macron. On August 9, 2018, Melania's parents were granted American citizenship. This revitalized accusations of hypocrisy by the Trumps regarding Melania's parents, as Donald had spoken out against the chain migration process that allowed them to enter the United States.
In October 2018, Melania took a tour of Africa without Donald, visiting Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt. She spent much of her time with children in schools, orphanages, and hospitals. She used the trip to tout relief work being carried out by the United States Agency for International Development, which raised questions about her husband's intention to cut its funding. Melania also received criticism for her fashion choices, where a photo opportunity in front of the Great Sphinx of Giza was seen as exploitive and a pith helmet she wore in Kenya was criticized for its association with colonialism in Africa. To these criticisms, she responded that people should pay more attention to her actions instead of her outfits. Perception of the trip grew worse when she responded to criticisms by saying that she was "the most bullied person in the world".
As first lady, Trump was the honorary chair of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She was unable to fulfill this duty for much of her tenure, as her husband's presidency had alienated many in the media and art communities. She made her first appearances at the Kennedy Center in 2019.
The Be Best campaign drew criticism for its perceived hypocrisy, challenging cyberbullying when her husband was well known for attacking people online. Even Donald had warned her before the campaign's launch that the contrast may provoke criticism. She acknowledged the discrepancy but insisted that she would continue because she felt it was a good cause. This received more attention in 2019 when the president made Twitter posts critical of Greta Thunberg, a teenage environmental activist diagnosed on the autism spectrum. This came days after Melania had criticized Pamela Karlan for invoking Barron in a speech against the president. The first lady's office responded that spouses such as her and Donald communicate differently, and said that Barron was not "an activist who travels the globe giving speeches".
On October 1, 2020, Melania's former advisor Stephanie Winston Wolkoff released audiotapes that featured Melania making profane statements about her image and role as first lady. In the tapes, she condemned the media for not giving her positive coverage, questioned why people wanted her to speak out against her husband when she supported his policies, and expressed frustration with her responsibility to oversee Christmas decorations in the White House. She also mentioned her "I really don't care, do u" jacket in the tapes, admitting that she wore it to irritate liberals. Winston Wolkoff had released the tapes alongside a tell-all book, Melania and Me. The Justice Department filed a civil suit against Wolkoff in October 2019, alleging breach of a nondisclosure agreement, but it was dropped in February 2021 under the Biden administration. In September 2022, Trump said that the audiotapes had been strategically edited to make people believe that her duties in the White House had been unimportant to her.
Trump underwent a major reorganization of her staff in April 2020 in anticipation of her husband's reelection campaign. She appointed Marcia Lee Kelly as her senior advisor and Emma Doyle as her policy advisor. Her chief of staff Lindsay Reynolds was removed, with her responsibilities going to Melania's communications director Stephanie Grisham. Trump became an active campaigner for her husband during the 2020 presidential election, which was a strong contrast to her 2016 activity.
In December 2020, the Siena College Research Institute released a study surveying scholars and historians on their assessments of American first ladies. It was the fifth such first ladies study that the Institute had conducted since 1982, and the first in which Trump appeared. Trump was ranked as being the worst of 40 assessed American first ladies, receiving the lowest assessments in all metrics that were weighed.