Melania Trump : 13 things you didn't know about Donald Trump's wife
From nude photo shoots and a creepy phone call to a $100,000 wedding dress and a secret half-brother
Melania
Trump
|
First Lady of the United States
(Designate)
|
Taking
office
|
January 20, 2017
|
President
|
Donald Trump
|
Succeeding
|
Michelle Obama
|
Born
|
Melanija Knavs
April 26, 1970 (age 46)
Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia
(now Slovenia)
|
Political
party
|
Republican
|
Height
|
5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
|
Spouse
|
Donald Trump (2005)
|
Children
|
1
|
Melania Trump (born Melanija Knavs;[2][a] April 26, 1970;
also known as Melania Knauss) is a Slovene American former model who is married
to American businessman and President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump.
Born in Slovenia, she became a permanent resident of the
United States in 2001 and a citizen in 2006. She will assume the role of First
Lady of the United States on January 20, 2017
Early life
Melania was born in Novo
Mesto in southeastern Slovenia
(then part of Yugoslavia) on
April 26, 1970. She is the
daughter of Amalija (née Ulčnik)
and Viktor Knavs, who managed car and motorcycle dealerships for a state-owned
vehicle manufacturer.Her father was from the nearby town of Radeče. Her mother came from the village of Raka, and was a patternmaker at the children's clothing
manufacturer "Jutranjka" in Sevnica. Melania has a sister, Ines, and an older half-brother, whom she
reportedly has never met, from
her father's previous relationship.
She grew up in a modest apartment in a concrete housing block in Sevnica, in Slovenia's Lower Sava Valley. When she was a teenager, the family
moved to a two-story house near Sevnica and
lived in a high-rise apartment in Ljubljana.
Melania attended the Secondary School of Design and Photography
in Ljubljana and studied at the University of Ljubljana for one year before dropping out.
She speaks six languages: her native Slovenian, and Serbian,
English, French, Italian and German.
1.
Melania
is Donald's third wife
The former Melania Knauss started
dating Donald Trump in 1998, married him in 2005 and gave birth to their son,
Barron, the following year. Before Melania, Donald was married for a few years
in the 1990s to Marla Maples, a television personality, former beauty queen and
mother to their daughter Tiffany Trump. The couple met while the businessman was
still with his first wife, Czechoslovakian Ivana Zelnickova, who he had married
in 1977. They have three children – Ivanka, Eric and eldest child Donald Trump
Jr, who, at 38, is eight years younger than his stepmother Melania.
Ivana and Donald were leading
socialites in New York during the 1980s, but their marriage ended with a very
public divorce in 1992. Absolutely Fabulous star Jennifer Saunders says some of
the inspiration for the show's fashionista Patsy Stone, played by Joanna
Lumley, came from Ivana, who often sports a high blonde beehive.
2.
The
Clintons went to her wedding
Bill and Hillary Clinton were among
the 350 guests when Melania and Donald tied the knot at the groom's landmark
Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. According to GQ, the bride wore a
$100,000 Dior dress with 1,500 crystals, which took a "legendary" 550
hours to make. It had a 13ft train and the bride wore a 16ft veil. However, the
gown was so difficult to walk in that Melania changed into a Vera Wang
hand-ruched silk tulle Grecian dress for the poolside after-party. Her
12-carat, emerald-cut Graff wedding ring is said to be worth £1.5m.
Melania's sister, Ines, was the
maid of honour and Donald's two sons, Donald Jr and Eric, served as best men.
Guests including Heidi Klum, Barbara Walters and Simon Cowell "slurped
caviar and Cristal in the shadow of a five-foot-tall Grand Marnier wedding
cake", says GQ, while the Hollywood Reporter says the seven-tier
"chef-d'oeuvre" weighed more than 200lbs.
3.
She
grew up in communist Yugoslavia and speaks five languages
Slovenian, English, French, Serbian
and German, if you want to know. That linguistic prowess could come in handy at
White House functions, but it has been suggested her thick accent is the reason
she makes few public speeches alongside her immigrant-bashing husband.
Melania was raised away from the
glamour of New York high society in a concrete tower block in then Yugoslavia
during the rule of Marshal Josip Tito. Now that her husband has become
president, Melania is set to become the first first lady to be born in a
communist nation and only the second to be born abroad, after Louisa Adams, the
English wife of sixth president John Quincy, who served from 1825 to 1829.
4.
She
thinks people should be nicer to one another
In a rare campaign speech just five
days before the election, Melania outlined her vision for what her role would
be in the White House if she were to become first lady, saying she would work
to combat a culture on social media that has become "too mean and too tough"
and which is filled with insults based on "looks and intelligence".
But as CNN reports, "she
didn't make any mention of the Twitter activities of her husband, Donald Trump,
who has relentlessly attacked his political foes, journalists, critics and other
entertainers for years with demeaning comments based on their appearances and
intelligence".
Melania, giving her first solo
speech since the Republican convention, added: "It is never OK when a
12-year-old girl or boy is mocked, bullied or attacked. It is terrible when it
happens on the playground, and it is absolutely unacceptable when it is done by
someone with no name hiding on the internet. We have to find a better way to
talk to each other."
She continued: "We must find
better ways to honour and support the basic goodness of our children,
especially in social media. It will be one of the main focuses of my work, if I
am privileged enough to become your first lady."
Lady Gaga led a chorus of critics
who say Melania decrying bullying is "pure hypocrisy"
.@MELANIATRUMP to say u will stand
for "anti-bullying" is hypocrisy. Your husband is 1 of the most
notorious bullies we have ever witnessed.
— #VoteHillary (@ladygaga) 6
November 2016
"There was a collective gasp
across the nation going, 'Have you met your husband Donald?'" said Alice
Stewart, a former Cruz campaign official, on CNN's The Lead on Thursday.
Lady Gaga, who is a Hillary Clinton
supporter founded an anti-bullying nonprofit with her mother called the Born
This Way Foundation.
5.
She
has a secret half-brother
While preparing a profile of the
incoming first lady for GQ, reporter Julia Ioffe made a startling discovery –
Melania's father, Victor Knavs, who she describes as traditional and
hardworking, fathered a secret son before marrying the model's mother.
Knavs agreed to pay child support
after a court battle proved he was Denis Cigelnjak's father, a claim he
initially contested, but he has never contacted his son nor acknowledged his
existence. Now aged 50, Cigelnjak still lives in the family's native Slovenia.
Melania initially said the reports
were false but later, confronted with court documents, claimed she had
misunderstood the question and had known about her half-brother "for
years".
6.
She
is the only first lady to have posed nude
Three years before she met Donald
Trump, Melania posed nude alongside for a French men's monthly magazine. The
"bombshell" photo set, obtained by the New York Post, shows her lying
naked in a bed alongside Scandinavian model Emma Eriksson.
Photographer Jarl Ale de
Basseville, who took the pictures, says the images are "beauty and not
porn", adding: "I always loved women together because I have been
with a lot of women who desired the menage a trois."
An unnamed insider said Melania
behaved "like a true professional" during the shoot and was
"charming throughout".
Donald, meanwhile, said: "In
Europe, pictures like this are very fashionable and common."
7.
She
is the least popular presidential spouse since Hillary
According to a Washington Post/ABC
News poll, Melania is the least popular presidential candidate spouse since
Hillary Clinton.
A survey on the spouses and running
mates of both presidential candidates saw Clinton's husband, former president
Bill, named most popular, with more than half of respondents having a positive
opinion of him. Clinton's prospective vice president, Tim Kaine, was next with
a net favourability rating - those viewing him positively minus those viewing
him negatively - of plus-19. Republican Mike Pence came in third, with plus-17,
and Melania languished in last place, getting a net favourability rating of
just plus-one.
"Melania Trump's popularity is
lower than nearly any other recent candidate's spouse during an election
year," the National Post says. "The most popular spouse was Barbara
Bush, George H W Bush's wife. Michelle Obama was also viewed fairly positively
at about this stage of 2012, though a little worse four years earlier, when she
wasn't as well known."
8.
She
supports her husband's hardline stance on immigration
Although it's not surprising for a
candidate's wife to back her husband's policies, some were taken aback by
Melania's enthusiasm for the Republican's tough rhetoric on migrants, having
immigrated to the US herself.
"I follow the law," she
told an MSNBC interviewer. "I never thought to stay here without
papers."
She was equally unfazed when
pressed about Donald's comments on "criminals" crossing the border into
the US. "I don't feel he insulted the Mexicans," she said. "He
said 'illegal immigrants'."
9.
But
she does wish Donald would 'act more presidential'
During a rally in Arizona, Donald
told the crowd both his wife and his eldest daughter, Ivanka, don't entirely
approve of his behaviour.
"My wife and my daughter said
to me, 'Act presidential. Act presidential,'" he said.
Melania insists she isn't shy when
it comes to giving her husband political advice. "I give him my opinions,
many, many times," she told CNN.
"I don't agree with everything
that he says but, you know, that is normal," she added. "I'm my own
person, I tell him what I think. I'm standing very strong on the ground on my
two feet and I'm my own person. And I think that's very important in the
relationship."
Asked what habit she would like to
see her husband give up, Melania didn't have to ponder her answer for long.
"The tweeting," she said.
On her own Twitter account, Melania
mostly sticks to the blandest of updates – the New York skyline features
heavily, as do photos of food and fashion, alongside a few innocuous snaps from
the campaign trail.
10.
She
is raising her son as 'Little Donald'
Ten-year-old Barron apparently
loves wearing a suit and tie and playing golf with his dad. He is also said to
share his father's love of bossing people around. "He fired nannies, fired
housekeepers," Melania said in a 2011 interview, adding that he quickly
hired them back.
Barron is closer in age to his
nephews and nieces than his own siblings and spends more time with his mother
because of his father's busy travel schedule.
"He is a very strong-minded,
very special, smart boy. He is independent and opinionated and knows exactly
what he wants. Sometimes I call him 'Little Donald'. He is a mixture of us in
looks, but his personality is why I call him Little Donald," Melania told
Parenting.com.
Donald has described his wife as an
"incredible" mother. "She loves her son, Barron, so much and I
have to say, she will make an unbelievable first lady," he said prior to
his election.
11.
She
was the subject of a creepy call with Howard Stern
In 1999, when her husband was
running for president of the Reform party, Melania took part in a sexually
charged conversation live on air with shock jock Howard Stern.
The DJ had been chatting to Donald
when the conversation turned to Melania. "Let me talk to that broad in
your bed," Stern said. Melania, "apparently scantily clad and
conveniently sitting nearby", was summoned to the phone, Mother Jones
reports, adding: "With Stern oozing his creepiest charm, things rapidly
got weird."
Stern insisted the former model
should "put on your hottest outfit" for a night out with him and
Donald and then asked her what she was wearing.
"Uh, not much," she
replied.
"Are you naked? Are you
nude?" Stern said.
"Almost," Melania said.
"Ahhh, I've got my pants off
already," replied Stern.
12.
She
could be the next Jackie Kennedy
Insiders warn Melania should not be
underestimated. Jackie Kennedy biographer Pamela Keogh told the Daily Mail
that, just like JFK's iconic wife, Melania is "beautiful, smart and keeps
her own counsel".
As far back as 2000, Melania told
the New York Times that if she were ever first lady, she would be "very
traditional – like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy".
Even though her husband has won the
presidency, Melania is the "real winner", says Celia Walden at the
Daily Telegraph. "After all, the American dream Melania's been living for
two decades now will just keep on getting better."
13.
She
can look forward to years of sartorial scrutiny
While her husband's acceptance
speech was being analysed by media watchers around the world, Melania's fashion
choices were being subjected to a similar level of examination - the kind of
scrutiny she can surely come to expect in the years ahead.
The Slovene-American former model
"looked dazzling as she took her first steps as the next First Lady of the
White House", said the Daily Express, adding that the "stunning
brunette" wore a white jumpsuit with a "serious split down the front".
Hollywood Life thought the
"Slovenian stunner" looked "graceful and elegant" in her
Election Day attire and devoted an entire feature to the outfit.
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