Melania Trump (born Melanija Knavs; April 26, 1970) is a Slovenian-American former model who served as the first lady of the United States from 2017 to 2021 as the wife of President Donald Trump. She is the first naturalized citizen to become first lady and the second foreign-born first lady after Louisa Adams. She is also the second Catholic first lady after Jacqueline Kennedy.
Melanija Knavs was born in 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 Milan and Paris to seek modeling work until she met 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. They began dating, and she began adjusting to a more lavish lifestyle. He worked to get her more modeling jobs, and she supported him during his 2000 presidential campaign. Melania and Donald 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 Donald to run for president in the 2016 presidential election, Melania only made rare campaign appearances, opting to help Donald 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 was forced to respond to 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 allowing Melania to negotiate her prenuptial agreement. Her stepdaughter Ivanka Trump fulfilled some of the first lady's traditional duties, causing a rivalry between the two. She 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. 2018 saw several challenges for Melania, including allegations of extramarital affairs by her husband, surgery for kidney disease, and a tour of Africa that was overshadowed by scandals. Trump prioritized children's issues during her tenure as first lady, 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, being the only person from whom he accepted frank advice, and he frequently asked her opinion. In the final months of her tenure, Trump endorsed her husband's false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. She has stayed out of public view since leaving the White House.
Source : Wikipedia
