Melania Trump, First Lady of the United States

Melania Trump is a Slovenian and American former model who has been the first lady of the United States since 2025 as the wife of Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States. She previously held the role from 2017 to 2021. She is the first naturalized citizen to become first lady, the second foreign-born first lady after Louisa Adams, and the second Catholic first lady after Jacqueline Kennedy. She is the second first lady in history to serve two non-consecutive terms.

Melanija Knavs was born in SR Slovenia—then part of Yugoslavia—where she began working as a fashion model at the age of 16. She changed the spelling of her name to Melania Knauss, and she traveled to Paris and Milan to seek modeling work before meeting Paolo Zampolli, who hired her and sponsored her immigration to the United States in 1996. She continued working as a model in Manhattan, where Zampolli introduced her to the real estate developer Donald Trump in 1998. Knauss and Trump began dating shortly afterward. He worked to get her more modeling jobs, and she supported him during his 2000 presidential campaign. Knauss and Trump married in 2005, and they had a son, Barron Trump, the following year. She dedicated most of her time to Barron during his infancy, spending less time working or accompanying her husband at events. She started her own jewelry brand, Melania, in 2009.

After encouraging her husband to run for president in the 2016 presidential election, Melania Trump only made rare campaign appearances, opting to help her husband strategize over the phone. She received major press coverage during the campaign when erotic photos from her modeling years were uncovered and published, and again when a speech she gave at the 2016 Republican National Convention was found to be plagiarized from a similar speech by Michelle Obama. In the month leading up to the election, she defended her husband following the release of the Access Hollywood tape that had caused a scandal for her husband.

Trump stayed in Manhattan for the first months of her tenure as first lady, allowing Barron to finish school and her to renegotiate her prenuptial agreement. Her stepdaughter Ivanka Trump fulfilled some of the first lady's traditional duties. Melania Trump kept to minimal activity after moving into the White House, often staying in the residence instead of her office in the East Wing, and she held fewer events than previous first ladies. She faced several challenges in 2018, including allegations of extramarital affairs by her husband, surgery for kidney disease, and a tour of Africa that was overshadowed by scandals. During her tenure as first lady, she prioritized children's issues, launching the Be Best campaign to promote children's welfare and making many visits to children's hospitals. She opposed her husband's family separation policy and convinced him to end the practice. She was a close advisor to her husband. In the final months of her tenure, she endorsed her husband's false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, and largely stayed out of public view after leaving the White House.

Family life

Melanija Knavs was born in Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia, now part of present-day Slovenia, on April 26, 1970. Her father, Viktor Knavs, first worked as a chauffeur, and he eventually sold car parts for a state-owned vehicle manufacturer as he made connections with the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the national communist party. Her mother, Amalija, worked as a patternmaker at the children's clothing manufacturer Jutranjka in Sevnica. In Sevnica, the family lived in the state-run housing complex Naselje Heroja Maroka. She has an older sister, Ines, and an older half-brother (from her father's previous relationship), Denis Cigelnjak, whom she reportedly has never met. Although Viktor Knavs was a member of Yugoslavia's communist party, which espoused a policy of state atheism, he had his daughters secretly baptized as Catholic, as was common.

She married Donald Trump on January 22, 2005, at the Bethesda-by-the-Sea church in Palm Beach, Florida. Upon marrying Donald, Melania became stepmother to his four children: Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump from his first marriage to Ivana Zelníčková, and Tiffany Trump from his second marriage to Marla Maples. On March 20, 2006, Melania and Donald had a son, Barron William Trump.

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Sources

• “An unusual first family” The Washington Post. By Karly Domb Sadof and Danielle Rindler. Jan. 13, 2017. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
• "Melania Trump." Wikipedia, revision of 20 January 2025. < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melania_Trump > Accessed 20 January 2025.
• "Donald John Trump & Melanija Knavs." Florida County Marriages via MyHeritage. < link > Accessed 20 January 2025.