Who is Melania Trump?

She’s now a member of two elite groups

The 10th-floor apartment in Gramercy Park, New York, was tiny. A Styrofoam wall divided the dining room and created a makeshift second bedroom with barely enough space for a futon.

At night, Melania Knauss flipped through fashion magazines or watched old movies. During the day, she could look out the window and see fellow supermodel Paulina Porizkova, a Sports Illustrated cover model, exercising in her own apartment.

Knauss had flown to New York at age 26 with two suitcases, a carry-on, and a modeling portfolio filled with images of her taken by European photographers.

After 11pm, when the international call rates dropped, Knauss would pick up the phone and place an overseas call, waiting to hear her mother’s familiar voice on the other end. While other models were out partying and working the dating scene, Knauss was talking to her mom and strategizing about how she could dominate the pages of the fashion magazines spread at her feet.

Melania was private, with a tendency toward being a loner. And though she did eventually land a spot in Sports Illustrated, Knauss became a household name for something else entirely: Marrying real estate mogul Donald Trump.

She has now joined two elite clubs: one of only two First Ladies to have been born abroad (the other is Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams), and one of only two First Ladies to have held the role in non-consecutive terms. (The other is Frances Cleveland, wife of Grover Cleveland.)

Melania’s mother, Amalija, grew up on an onion farm – in fact, her family was among the most prolific growers of the Raka onion. (Fun facts: Raka onions are larger than a shallot but smaller than a white or yellow onion you’d buy at an American grocery store. They are red, and named after the village in Slovenia where they originated.)

Melania’s father, Viktor, was trained as a mechanic and had a passion for cars and motorcycles. He would go on to become a driver for a nearby local mayor and the director of the town’s clothing factory.

Amalija and Viktor met in 1966 and were married a year later. Melanija Knavs (she would later change her name to Melania Knaus and then to Melania Knauss, thinking it would help her modeling career) was born April 26, 1970 as the couple’s second daughter.

Melania’s mother, Amalija

Sevnica, where Melania grew up, was a small town on the bank of the Sava river, with a medieval castle perched on the hillside and a bright green forest surrounding it.

When Melania was young, her mother wore high heels to her shifts at the textile factory. In her time off, she sewed clothes for her daughters, and eventually encouraged them to go into modeling. At age seven, Melania walked her first runway, where she modeled clothes at her mother’s factory while sporting a missing front tooth and a bobbed haircut.

There was nothing 14-year-old Melania wanted more than to see Elton John in concert, and she got her wish, accompanied by her sister Ines. She could not have imagined that decades later, Elton John would perform at her wedding to an American real estate mogul.

After a fashion show in Ljubljana, Melania waited outside the venue for her mother. Melania was 16 and nearly six feet tall, and she caught the attention of Stane Jerko, a photographer. In short order, the images he took helped her get a modeling agent.

But five months later, Jerko said he stopped hearing from her.

In a biography of Melania, Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan (who interviewed more than one hundred people in five countries), wrote, “This would become a pattern in her life. Melania would seize an opportunity and put great effort into it. Then she would move on and never look back. People she met found it hard to square her in-the-moment kindness with her ability to cut loose those who had helped her along the way. But it also meant that she was never dependent upon or indebted to any one person.”

Melania planned on becoming an architect, enrolling in a university program, but she later dropped out to pursue her modeling career. She won a modeling contest in Italy, and then another in Slovenia. She changed the spelling of her first name from Melanija to Melania, and received a contract from an agency in Milan.

Even as a young model, Melania was cautious and quiet. She didn’t drink or smoke. She ran up and down the stairs for exercise. She ate seven fruits and vegetables a day. Her circle of friends was closely guarded.

The next few years flew by in a whirlwind of modeling gigs and casting calls. Her big break came from Paolo Zampolli, a wealthy Italian who was the executive vice president of a model management firm in New York. According to Mary Jordan, Zampolli made a business of scouting for models to bring to New York, and he thought Melania was “stable and focused.” He told Jordan that he paid for Melania to fly to New York and helped her get a visitor’s visa. He then arranged an H-1B visa so she could work at his agency, Metropolitan.

To get the visa, she needed to show “distinguished merit or ability” in her field. She and her lawyers have never released her official immigration records, but her attorney Michael Wildes said she received five H-1B visas between 1996 and 2001. She then received a green card and became a permanent resident.

Zampolli became Melania’s unofficial “image manager,” Jordan says, noting that he has been “quoted in news stories about Melania and seems to be one of few friends permitted to discuss her publicly.”

The relationship between Melania and Zampolli has lasted decades. During the two years of work on the book, Jordan always felt “Zampolli’s presence close by and believes he advised people to have hazy memories about Melania and to not share many details.” Melania’s roommate from Gramercy Park, fashion photographer Matthew Atanian, told Jordan that “Zampolli told him to ‘bury’ the old days.”

It was Zampolli who introduced Melania to her future husband, Donald Trump. She was invited to the Kit Kat Klub during New York’s Fashion Week. While sitting at a table, Zampolli waved at a man who was approaching with his date. Donald introduced himself to Melania and sat down next to her. He later said during interviews that he couldn’t take his eyes off her and he “went crazy” when he saw her. Trump asked for her number, but Melania declined, since he was there on a date.

“Give me your number,” Melania offered instead.

Trump replied, “I will give you my number, if you promise to call me.” He gave her a card with his home and work numbers. A few days later, she called. They kept their relationship quiet at first, and Melania’s non-authorized biographer says this is because Donald Trump was separated but not yet divorced from his second wife, Marla Maples.

Melania describes their early romance as a “well-kept secret known only to the two of us.” But soon, their relationship was splattered across the gossip pages. The visibility also boosted her modeling career, and she was able to double her rates to $10,000 per day.

In 1999, Trump floated the idea of running for president, which Melania said she was supportive of, telling the Washington Post, “I think America needs a new leader. It’s good, it’s a good idea.”

But by early 2000, Melania was no longer by his side. They had broken up, according to a story published that year in the New York Post, because she had found a towel covered in another girl’s make-up in his apartment and was suspicious he was cheating on her.

Details of the breakup are not clear, but they were back together within months, and were married on Jan. 22, 2005, in Palm Beach. Their wedding was Vogue magazine-worthy, with 350 guests, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Melania wore a custom Dior gown encrusted with 1500 pearls and rhinestones. It weighed nearly 60 pounds.

A year later, Melania gave birth to their son, Barron, and she became a US citizen. She was eventually successful at moving her parents and sister to the United States, and in 2018, her parents became naturalized citizens.

Many questions have been asked about how Melania’s parents were given citizenship during Trump’s presidency, but details are hazy. The process generally involves needing to become lawful permanent residents (colloquially called having a green card) for at least five years before applying for naturalization. There are other requirements too, like passing a citizenship test.

A lawyer for the couple said Melania’s parents had met the five year requirement but “I can’t give further comment.”

Trump didn’t become president the first time he had the idea to run, and it appears as though the idea was never far from mind. According to Roger Stone, a close ally of Trump’s, Melania told Trump that he should run again, but that, “if you’re not going to do it, stop talking about it because it’s getting old. And if you run, you’re going to win.”

After announcing his candidacy in 2015, Trump leaned on Melania for a major decision: Who should he pick as a running mate? She spent time with the potential candidates, and eventually said that her choice was Mike Pence, because Pence would, “let Trump be Trump.”

Donald and Melania have now been married for nearly 20 years, longer than Trump’s two previous marriages. Friends and domestic help say that they have a marriage built on independent lives which “rarely intersect.” They have differing routines and separate schedules, and housekeepers have said the couple spends very little time together, maintaining separate bedrooms in all of their homes.

In one 2016 interview, Melania said, “we are two independent people, thinking on their own and have a very open conversation…I don’t listen [to] anybody about what to do, what to say, when to say it.” In another interview, she said, “We like to do what we like to do, and we give ourselves and each other space.”

After Trump was inaugurated, she didn’t move to the White House full time for six months, allowing Barron to finish out the school year in New York. Once ensconced in the residence, she rarely used her office in the East Wing, instead choosing to remain in the private residence with a small staff.

Her desire to protect Barron from the public eye meant that she spent more time out of the limelight than some other First Ladies of the modern era. During her first year, she made only eight speeches. In comparison, Michelle Obama gave 74 and Laura Bush gave 42.

Slowly, she dug into the projects that the unpaid job of First Lady has become known for. Melania’s first major endeavors involved redecorating dozens of rooms, including the President’s Dining Room, the Queens’ Bedroom (which yes, did host Queen Elizabeth II), and the White House Tennis Pavilion.

One renovation received a lot of negative press: Melania redid the famous White House Rose Garden, which was originally created in the early 1960s by Jackie Kennedy and designer Bunny Mellon. The updates included more TV-friendly lighting and the uprooting of crab apple trees that were part of the original design by Mellon. In 2021, more than 50,000 people signed an online petition asking then-First Lady Jill Biden to restore the Rose Garden to its “former glory.”

Her other First Lady Project (not the actual name, as the role of First Lady has no actual official duties) was an initiative to stop cyberbullying, called Be Best. She said, “As a mother and as First Lady, it concerns me that in today’s fast-paced and ever-connected world, children can be less prepared to express or manage their emotions and oftentimes turn to forums of destructive or addictive behavior, such as bullying, drug addiction, or even suicide.”

Melania’s parents moved into the White House residence, and this gave Barron the proximity to his grandparents – and to the Slovenian language – she wanted. Barron grew up speaking Slovenian to his mother and grandparents, and a now-viral video of four year old Barron saying “I like my sooooootcase” shows him speaking English with a Slovenian accent.

In Melania’s new memoir, she details how she is pro-choice, but says that she prefers to talk about these things with her husband privately, rather than publicly challenge him. This squares with the idea that Melania sees herself as private, independent, and autonomous. She doesn’t view it as her responsibility to change her husband’s mind or to even let the public know her opinions on hot button issues.

According to her unauthorized biographer, Melania was unaware of some of the details of Trump’s affairs with Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels until the 2016 election cycle, but she has refused to publicly comment on his pattern of infidelity.

On January 20th, wearing a tailored black coat and a black hat pulled low over her face, Melania stood by her husband as he was sworn in as the 47th president. She won’t be living at the White House full time, and time will tell how she makes her mark as the second First Lady to get a second chance at the job.