Although President Trump has made quite a show for himself, his wife, First Lady Melania
Trump, has done her best to mostly stay out of the spotlight.
But from her childhood, to their fateful meeting, to their marriage today, we're taking a closer
look at Trump's right-hand lady.
"Finish this sentence for me, 'Melania Trump is…'"
"Staying true to herself."
When Melania tied the knot with Donald, the billionaire had already been married twice
before.
And according to Vanity Fair, his first wife, Ivana Trump, shared his penchant for publicity.
The businesswoman reportedly doled out a, quote, "press kit of flattering clips" to
interviewers during talk of her husband's potential 1980s presidential run.
Yeah, he's been kicking the idea around for a while.
"If there were politics, it would be as a Republican.
It would be, I guess, as a Republican."
According to the Independent, Donald and Ivana were a seemingly unified front when it came
to cultivating dramatic Page Six headlines, but they split in the early '90s amidst The
Donald's scandalous affair with model Marla Maples.
Donald married Maples in '93, but according to Insider, they finalized their divorce six
years later, after Donald met Melania at a party through mutual friends.
When Melania married Donald in 2005, she became a stepmother to his four children, who were
barely younger than she was.
Melania is just seven years older than Don's eldest son, Donald Jr.
And as of mid 2020, Ivanka , Eric, and Tiffany are 38, 36, and 26 years old, respectively.
That's not exactly a huge leap in age from their stepmom, who just entered her 50s.
It's not at all surprising that candid language is part of Donald's vocabulary.
We saw as much with the leaked Access Hollywood tapes, born in the same year he married Melania.
What's most peculiar is that the first lady, who is notoriously tight-lipped about her
private life, had been wildly candid about her intimate relations with the billionaire,
in the past.
"He was known as kind of a ladies' man."
According to the New York Post, Melania signed to a modeling agency at the age of 18.
And in a joint 1999 interview with Howard Stern, she revealed that the couple allegedly
"got busy" once a day, or even more.
A year later, the public got a glimpse of the action, with the model's steamy GQ cover
story.
Today, the tables appear to have turned.
According to CNN correspondent Kate Bennett's book, Free, Melania: The Unauthorized Biography,
the couple don't share a bed in the White House.
Melania allegedly has a room of her own on an entirely separate floor.
Melania is undoubtedly shy about PDA.
The former model has been caught swatting her husband's hand away during a trip to Israel,
only to reluctantly hold it while posing for official photos.
She even once notoriously greeted Donald with a handshake.
Though the first lady's affection clearly isn't for public consumption, in her previous
life as a model, she didn't mind baring more than her soul for her art.
In 2000, Melania threw caution to the wind for a steamy January spread in British GQ.
Longtime editor Dylan Jones revealed to The Hollywood Reporter,
"Given that she was obviously so keen to be featured in GQ, we came up with a rather kitsch
and camp story for her to feature in."
In the cover shot, the future first lady appeared on a fur rug, dripping in diamonds, and handcuffed
to a briefcase in a private jet.
At the time, it epitomized the kind of luxury the star grew accustomed to in her gilded
Trump Tower penthouse.
Melania isn't like most first ladies when it comes to her nationality.
According to the New York Post, the model was born in Slovenia in 1970 to an Austrian
father, who owned an auto dealership, and a Slovenian mother, who worked in the garment
industry.
Melania was discovered by a famous photographer at a modeling contest when she was 17 years
old.
At 18, she signed to an agency in Milan, then moved to the U.S. in 1996, according to the
BBC.
This makes Melania one of two foreign-born first ladies, second only to John Quincy Adams'
wife, who earned her title in 1825.
According to USA Today, Louisa Adams was born in England in 1775.
The First Lady speaks Slovenian, which she's taught to her son, Barron.
And according to CNN, Melania can also speak French, Serbian, German, and Italian, along
with English and her native tongue.
Y'know, six languages, no big deal.
In September 2016, Trump announced his hallmark immigration plan in a speech that detailed
his intentions to build a wall across the U.S.-Mexican border and deport 11 million
undocumented immigrants, according to The New York Times.
This was nearly derailed mere weeks later when the AP uncovered information about his
wife's immigrant status.
It appeared that Melania launched her American dream illegally.
According to BBC News, Melania first entered the U.S. in August of 1996 with a visitor
visa.
During this time, the AP alleges that Melania made over $20,000 from 10 modeling jobs without
legal permission to work.
This work allegedly occurred in the five weeks before her H-1B work visa was approved that
October.
In 2001, Melania graduated to an EB-1 visa, also known as the Einstein Visa, which is
theoretically reserved for highly-acclaimed leaders in their respective fields.
So how did she make the cut?
She's a celeb with a ton of press, and applicants must meet three out of 10 noteworthy criteria,
which includes coverage in major publications and significant contributions in your chosen
field.
Per the BBC, Melania became a U.S. citizen in 2006.
So it turns out being rich and famous can help you in life after all!
Once Melania secured her citizenship, she was able to sponsor green cards for her parents,
putting them on a path to become U.S. citizens.
And according to The New York Times, the pair obtained their citizenship in 2018.
Ironically, the very process they used has been slammed by Melania's husband.
"These are frivolous claims to gain admission into our country."
According to CNN, Trump has long sought to end the visa category that allowed Melania's
parents to become citizens.
Per The New York Times, he even went so far as to denounce the process while his in-laws
were going through it.
Just months before Melania's parents had their naturalization ceremony, Trump tweeted,
"CHAIN MIGRATION must end now!
Some pedoople come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil.
NOT ACCEPTABLE!"
There's still a lot of speculation surrounding Melania's parents' green cards.
According to The New York Times, a person typically has to be a permanent resident for
five years before they can even apply for citizenship, but some reports claim that the
couple only obtained their green cards a few months prior.
When asked if they used chain migration to become Americans, their immigration lawyer
told the outlet, quote, "I suppose."
In an unprecedented move that cost taxpayers millions of dollars, Melania famously delayed
her move to the White House.
Instead, she stayed in her $100 million penthouse in midtown Manhattan.
According to The Washington Post, her initial reasoning was the fact that she didn't want
her then 10-year-old son to have to start at a new school in the middle of the year
— but could she have had another motive?
In her book, The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump, reporter Mary Jordan
alleges that the former model stayed behind to renegotiate her prenup.
In truth, the highly private model didn't exactly sign up to be a first lady, and her
existing prenup had allegedly not stood up to the task.
She did, however, renegotiate it to her liking.
This reportedly included more protections for Barron, like a role in the family business
and a sizable inheritance, just like Trump's three eldest children.
Melania finally officially moved into the White House in June 2017.
In 2016, Melania was slammed after delivering a speech at the Republican National Convention
that bore striking similarities to a speech given by Michelle Obama at the Democratic
National Convention eight years prior.
"You work hard for what you want in life."
Although multiple lines from Melania's speech appeared to match Michelle's, in some cases
word for word, the Trump campaign denied it had been plagiarized.
The campaign claimed in a statement,
"In writing her beautiful speech, Melania's team of writers took notes on her life's inspirations,
and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking.
Melania's immigrant experience and love for America shone through in her speech, which
made it such a success."
But that wasn't just a one-off incident.
Melania appears to have habitually drawn inspiration from the former first family, particularly
with her "Be Best" anti-cyberbullying campaign.
According to Business Insider, when the former model announced the initiative in 2018, she
circulated an informational pamphlet titled "Talking with Kids About Being Online," which
was nearly identical to the one published by the Obama administration in 2014.
"Those voices cannot be ignored.
And through Be Best, I will do all I can to help them."
The White House did eventually own up to recirculating the packet with certain minor updates.
Melania reportedly later agreed to rebrand the old pamphlet.
You only have to go as far as Donald Trump's Twitter account to see his stance on the mainstream
media.
While the president has taken to calling pretty much any media outlet that reports facts to
be "fake news," Melania actually had a major win against real fake news.
In 2017, the star fought the notoriously harsh British tabloids, and won.
"I didn't expect media will be so dishonest and so mean."
According to USA Today, Melania first sued the companies that own the Daily Mail Online
in 2016 after the publication claimed that the modeling agencies she worked for in Milan
and New York also operated as escort agencies.
She, of course, denied the allegations and ultimately won a retraction.
But that's not where it ended.
In 2017, Melania refiled her $150 million suit.
According to USA Today, this was an unprecedented move.
Though Donald had yet to be inaugurated when Melania first filed, he had since taken office.
Until that point, a first lady had never filed a libel lawsuit, which is notoriously difficult
to win if you're a public figure.
According to The Guardian, Melania ended up working out a settlement with the media company,
though it was nowhere near her original ask.
She received less than $3 million, along with a public apology, but a win is still a win.
Rumor has it that Melania doesn't exactly get along with Ivanka Trump.
According to an excerpt from Mary Jordan's book, the pair have allegedly invented some
not-so-nice nicknames for each other.
Melania reportedly dubbed her step-daughter, quote, "the Princess," and Ivanka supposedly
called her stepmother, quote, "the Portrait", because Melania rarely spoke.
But this wasn't the only time the pair seemed to clash.
According to Business Insider, Melania was not thrilled when Ivanka allegedly tried to
rename the First Lady's Office, the, quote, "First Family Office."
Ivanka reportedly ruled the roost before Melania moved into the White House, and treated it
as if it were her own home.
Jordan wrote,
"Melania did not like it.
When she and Barron finally moved in, she put an end to the 'revolving door' by enforcing
firm boundaries."
"There's one First Lady."
Melania even reportedly donned her infamous "I really don't care, do U?"
jacket as a dig at her stepdaughter.
This also may have been the sole time the billionaire's wife wore fast fashion.
In Kate Bennett's book, the pair's relationship was described as, quote, "cordial, but not
close."
It appears that Melania really is "being best."
The former model is actually the most popular member of her family currently working at
the White House.
According to Vanity Fair, she's adored by the permanent White House staff, but that
opinion is also largely shared by the public.
YouGov's 2019 findings show that 51 percent of Americans view the first lady favorably.
This may seem slim, considering the alternative is that nearly half of all citizens don't
like her, but it's actually a much better approval rating than her husband.
Only 44 percent of Americans viewed Donald favorably at the time, with 42 percent of
Americans viewing him, quote, "very unfavorably."
In comparison, only 19 percent of Americans have those kinds of strong feelings about
FLOTUS.
Melania also fares better than even her stepkids do.
Ivanka Trump is the most-liked of Trump's eldest children with a 44 percent positive
rating.
Donald Trump Jr. only has a 36 percent positive rating, and Eric Trump only has a 32 percent
positive approval rating, though it should be noted that 24 percent of Americans polled
said they don't know what to think about Eric, anyway.
Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner has the lowest approval rating at just 27 percent.
"I wanna show them that I don't care.
You can criticize whatever you wanna say, but it will not stop me to do what I feel
is right."
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