Melania Trump - From fashion model to first lady - Celebrity World
Channel: Info World
Date: 2020-12-30

Melania Trump is born on April 26, 1970. Melania is a Slovene-American former model and businesswoman. She is the current first lady of the United States, assuming the role when her husband, Donald Trump, became the 45th president of the United States.

Melania Trump worked as a fashion model through agencies in Milan and Paris and moved to New York City in 1996. She was associated with Irene Marie Models and Trump Model Management. 

In March 2001 she became a permanent resident of the U.S.  She married the businessman, real estate developer and television personality Donald Trump in January 2005, gave birth to their son Barron in March 2006, and obtained U.S. citizenship in July 2006.

After Louisa Adams, she is the second first lady to have been born outside the country (not counting those born in U.S. territory before the country existed), the first one to be a naturalized citizen  and the first whose native language is not English. 


Melania began modeling at five years old and started doing commercial work at sixteen when she posed for the Slovenian fashion photographer Stane Jerko.


When she began working as a model, she adapted the Slovene version of her last name "Knavs" to the German version "Knauss".At eighteen, Knauss signed with a modeling agency in Milan, Italy. In 1992, she was named runner-up in the Jana Magazine "Look of the Year" contest, held in Ljubljana, which promised its top three contestants an international modeling contract.


In 2010, Melania launched her own line of jewelry, Melania Timepieces, and Jewelry, for sale on QVC.  She also marketed a Melania Marks Skin Care Collection at high-end department stores.  According to a financial filing in 2016, her businesses brought in between US$15,000 and US$50,000 in royalties that year.


Melania and Donald Trump appeared together while Trump campaigned for the 2000 Reform Party presidential nomination. When asked by The New York Times what her role would be were he to become president, she replied: "I would be very traditional, like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy". The two became engaged in 2004. On January 22, 2005, they married in an Anglican service at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida, followed by a reception in the ballroom at her husband's Mar-a-Lago estate. The marriage was her first and his third. 


In November 2015, she was asked about her husband's presidential campaign and replied: "I encouraged him because I know what he will do and what he can do for America. He loves the American people, and he wants to help them". According to Washington Post's Mary Jordan, however, Melania was one of Trump's biggest supporters and continues to be a sounding board to him.

In 2016, Melania told CNN her focus as first lady would be to help women and children. She also said she would combat cyberbullying, especially among children.

Although Melania was mostly silent about her husband Donald Trump's 2020 campaign she appeared in the late stage of the 2020 campaign. 3 weeks before the election she appeared for a brief time of 18 minutes in Atglen, Pennsylvania on October 27, 2020. 

She assumed the role of first lady of the United States on January 20, 2017.

Of Trump's inauguration, Vogue compared Melania's wardrobe to that of Jacqueline Kennedy and Nancy Reagan, writing that Trump closely works with her stylist, designer Hervé Pierre, preferring "strongly tailored pieces" in bold colors and wearing almost exclusively high-end designers.


She is the second foreign-born woman to hold the title of first lady, after Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams.

On March 8, 2017, she 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.

Melania took an active role in planning the Trump administration's first state dinner on April 23, 2018, to honor French President Emmanuel Macron.


When the president and first lady visited Vatican City in May 2017, she identified as Catholic. She is the first Catholic to live in the White House since President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline and is the second Catholic first lady of the United States.