Melania Trump (née Knauss, born Melanija Knavs, April 26, 1970; Germanized to Melania Knauss) is a Slovene-American jewelry and watch designer and former model. She is married to American billionaire real estate developer and 2016 U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump. Born in Yugoslavia (now Slovenia), she became a permanent resident of the United States in 2001 and a citizen in 2006.

Early life

Knauss was born in Novo Mesto in southeastern Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia) on April 26, 1970. Her father, Viktor Knavs, who managed car and motorcycle dealerships for a state-owned vehicle manufacturer, and was a member of the Slovenian Communist Party, came from the nearby town of Radeče. Her mother, Amalija Ulčnik,came from the village of Raka[9] and was a patternmaker at the childrens’ clothing manufacturer Jutranjka in Sevnica.She has an older sister, Ines,[11] and an older half-brother, whom she has never met, from her father’s previous relationship.

Knauss 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 used a high-rise apartment in Ljubljana. She began her modeling career at age 16 and at age 17 posed for Slovenian fashion photographer Stane Jerko. At 18 she signed with a modeling agency in Milan, Italy. She was named runner-up in the 1992 Jana Magazine “Look of the Year” contest, held in Ljubljana, which promised its top three contestants an international modeling contract. She speaks Slovenian, English, French, German, and Serbo-Croatian.

Career

Modeling career

Knauss studied design at the High School of Design in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, and architecture at the University of Ljubljana, dropping out after her first year. She then worked as a model for fashion houses in Milan and Paris, France, before relocating to New York City in 1996,[4] her contract and visa negotiated by Italian businessman Paolo Zampolli. Working with photographers including Helmut Newton, Patrick Demarchelier, and Mario Testino, she subsequently appeared on the covers of Harper’s Bazaar (Bulgaria), Ocean Drive, In Style Weddings, New York Magazine, Avenue, Allure, Vanity Fair (Italy) and Vogue (following her marriage to Trump), Self,[citation needed] Glamour, GQ (U.K.), Elle, and FHM. She was also featured as a bikini model in the 2000 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. As a model, she was associated with several well-known modeling agencies, including Donald Trump’s Trump Model Management.

Career pre-marriage

In 2000, Knauss appeared with Trump while he campaigned for the Reform Party 2000 presidential nomination and, several years later, she appeared in an advertisement for Aflac insurance in which she and the Aflac mascot, a duck, voiced at the time by comedian Gilbert Gottfried, exchange personalities via a Frankenstein-like mad experiment.

Charity work

She has been associated with various charity events, including of The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. She was Honorary Chairwoman for Martha Graham Dance Company in April 2005; is an active member of the Police Athletic League, which honored her with Woman of the Year 2006; has been an Honorary Chairwoman for The Boy’s Club of New York for five consecutive years; and in 2005, The American Red Cross awarded her with the title of Goodwill Ambassador. In 2008, she rang the closing bell at NASDAQ to commemorate the Fifth Annual National Love Our Children Day and the beginning of National Child Abuse Prevention month.

Marriage to Donald Trump

Melania and Donald Trump at the Oscar De La Renta Fashion Show in New York City, 2006
After moving to New York City in 1996, Knauss met Donald Trump at a Fashion Week party in New York City in September 1998, while he was still married to (but separated from) Marla Maples; Trump attended the event with another date, Celina Midelfart, and Knauss initially refused to give Trump her phone number.Knauss broke off the relationship shortly after it began, but the couple reconciled after a few months.Although Knauss moved into Trump Tower and began buying furniture at Sotheby’s for the apartment, she maintained a separate apartment before their marriage. Their relationship gained attention after a 1999 interview on The Howard Stern Show[23] and additional publicity after the 2004 launch of Trump’s successful business-oriented reality television show, The Apprentice. Donald Trump described their long courtship in 2005: “We literally have never had an argument, forget about the word ‘fight’ … We just are very compatible. We get along.”

Trump in 2011
After becoming engaged in 2004, Donald Trump and Melania Knauss were married on January 22, 2005, at The Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida, followed by a reception in the 17,000-sq.-ft. ballroom at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

The event was attended by noted persons such as Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, Rudy Giuliani, Heidi Klum, Star Jones, P. Diddy, Shaquille O’Neal, Barbara Walters, Conrad Black, Regis Philbin, Simon Cowell, Kelly Ripa, then-Senator Hillary Clinton, and former president Bill Clinton. At the reception, Billy Joel serenaded the crowd with “Just the Way You Are” and supplied new lyrics about Trump to the tune of “The Lady Is a Tramp”.

The Trumps’ wedding ceremony and reception were widely covered by the media. Melania wore a $200,000 dress made by John Galliano of the house of Christian Dior. The cake at the reception was a 50-pound orange Grand Marnier chocolate truffle cake, with a Grand Marnier butter-cream filling, covered with 3,000 roses created by the chef at Mar-a-Lago.

In 2006, Melania gave birth to a son named Barron William Trump. Donald suggested his first name and Melania his middle name. As an infant, Barron reportedly occupied his own floor in the Trumps’ apartment in Trump Tower in Manhattan, but often slept in a crib in his parents’ bedroom. He plays golf with his father and is also reported to be fluent in Slovenian.[31] He also speaks some French.[8] He is said to like wearing a suit and tie, and Melania’s nickname for him is “Mini-Donald”.

Melania and Donald are often seen and photographed together at New York City society events and receptions. Television personality Barbara Walters, impressed with Melania’s intelligence when she met her, has said of her: “Maybe because she’s so pretty, we don’t expect her to be as smart as she is.”

In 2015, asked about her husband’s presidential campaign, Melania said, “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.” When asked by The New York Times what her role would be if Trump were to become president, Melania replied: “I would be very traditional. Like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy. I would support him.”

During Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, an anti-Trump PAC published an attack ad featuring a nude photo of Melania that was published in 2000 as part of a British GQ magazine photoshoot. The photograph shows her handcuffed to a briefcase, lying on a fur blanket aboard Donald’s private jet.