{UAH} Melania Trump: 19 things you might not know about the First Lady
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Melania Trump: 19 things you might not know about the First Lady
From nude photoshoots to linguistic prowess and a secret half-brother back home in Slovenia
Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, arrive at the New York Hilton Midtown for an election night party.
Melania Trump is often deployed overseas "to present a more open side of an administration that has increasingly isolated itself from its closest allies and embraced dictators and authoritarian rulers" says The New York Times.
And the Trumps' latest trip to Europe was no exception.
While her husband provoked mass protests in London, riled Nato and caused outrage in the US by appearing to side with Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence agencies, Melania met veterans and children, promoted her youth-focused Be Best campaign and played bowls with Philip May, the husband of the prime minister.
Before the trip, CNN said Melania has "served as an asset during previous trips abroad, earning generally high praise from foreign media", although, "the notoriously private first lady often says more with her actions than with her words".
Nowhere was this more evident than her meeting with Vladimir Putin, where her terrified facial expression when shaking the Russian president's hand stood in stark contrast to her husband's fawning display.
Here are 19 things you might not know about the first lady:
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A well-known international model, Melania is the only first lady to have posed nude, for a French men's monthly magazine in the 1990s.
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.
Hillary Clinton 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.
She grew up in communist Yugoslavia and speaks five languages
Slovene, 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 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.
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Trump's defeated presidential rival Hillary Clinton was a guest at their wedding, along with her husband Bill. Among the other 350 friends, family and celebrities who attended the ceremony at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Florida estate were Heidi Klum, Barbara Walters and Simon Cowell.
She has a secret half-brother
While preparing a profile of the first lady for GQ, reporter Julia Ioffe made a startling discovery – Melania's father, Victor Knavs, who the former model describes as traditional and hardworking, fathered a secret son before marrying Melania's mother.
Knavs agreed to pay child support after a court battle proved he was Denis Cigelnjak's father, a claim he initially contested. However, 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".
She is the first Catholic in the White House since the Kennedys
Following her visit to the Vatican earlier this year when Pope Francis blessed a rosary for her, Melania's spokeswoman confirmed the First Lady is a practising Catholic.
But there are still lots of unknowns, "as this first lady has managed until now to keep her religious practices under wraps" says the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Good Housekeeping claims she was secretly baptised as a child, as the atheist Communist regime in her native Slovenia officially banned the practice of religion.
However, the Daily Mail says it is "unclear when Mrs Trump became a Catholic". Growing up as the daughter of a Communist Party member in rural Slovenia, her family maintained the outward appearances of being atheists, according to people in her childhood village of Sevnica who spoke to DailyMail.com in late 2015.
Accordingly, the paper says Melania and her sister were not baptised and did not make their First Holy Communion with other children their age.
Donald Trump is a life-long Presbyterian, and they were married in a Florida Episcopal church.
Whatever her history, Melania is the first Catholic to live in the White House since JFK and his wife Jacqueline in the early 1960s.
She didn't want Donald to be President
One of the more explosive revelations to emerge from Michael Wolff's tell-all book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House was that neither Donald or his wife, expected, or wanted him to become president:
"Shortly after 8 p.m. on Election Night, when the unexpected trend — Trump might actually win — seemed confirmed, Don Jr. told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears — and not of joy."
The plan, claims Wolff, was for Trump to "win by losing" so he could launch his own TV channel, his campaign's Chief Executive Steve Bannon would become "the de facto head of the tea-party movement" and his wife, "who had been assured by her husband that he wouldn't become president, could return to inconspicuously lunching".
He goes on to say the inauguration was not much better, with Donald Trump "angry that A-level stars had snubbed the event, disgruntled with the accommodations at Blair House, and visibly fighting with his wife, who seemed on the verge of tears".
The book also insinuates the first couple have separate bedrooms, the first pair to do so since the Kennedys.
In response to the claims, the First Lady's spokeswoman hit back, saying "Mrs Trump supported her husband's decision to run for president and in fact, encouraged him to do so. She was confident he would win and was very happy when he did".
She is more popular than her husband
Almost a year and a half on from her husband's inauguration, a new poll from CNN has found Melania is far more popular than the president.
The survey found she has experienced "a significant surge" in support this calendar year, with 57% of Americans now having a favourable impression of the first lady, up ten points from January.
This is the highest rating Melania has enjoyed since her husband became president, and far greater than the 47% of Americans who currently have a favourable impression of Donald Trump.
Notably, Melania has seen an increase in favourable feelings among Democrats (up 15% since January), and women (up 13% since January).
Politico says the surge in support since new year has come as "the first lady has elevated her public presence in recent months and weathered numerous reports regarding her husband's alleged infidelity", adding her uptick in approval comes as she has "cultivated a perception of personal and professional independence in the White House".
2017 also saw a surge in the number of babies in the US named Melania. According to the Social Security Administration's annual report on baby names, Melania saw the fifth-largest jump in popularity among baby girls last year.
In contrast, Donald was just one of 11 male names in 2017 to remain unchangedamong newborns. In fact, there were just 594 Donalds born in 2017, less than 1% of all male births. This is a far cry from 1934, the same year Walt Disney's Donald Duck first made an appearance, when 30,407 babies were named Donald.
She is the only first lady to have posed nude
Three years before she met Donald, Melania posed nude 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."
She sued the Daily Mail for reporting on escort allegations
Earlier this year, Daily Mail paid an undisclosed sum to Melania after it reported on false allegations that she once worked as an escort.
Its double-page spread, published last August, during the US election campaign, was titled: "Racy photos and troubling questions about his wife's past that could derail Trump". It was later taken down from the website.
Melania filed a libel claim in February reportedly seeking damages of $150m (£120m).
A statement read out at the Royal Courts of Justice in April said the article included "false and defamatory claims… which questioned the nature of her work as a professional model and republished allegations that she provided services beyond simply modelling".
It continued: "The allegations strike at the heart of the claimant's personal integrity and dignity."
The Daily Mail published a retraction and an apology in both the newspaper and on its website, saying: "We accept that these allegations about Mrs Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them. We apologise to Mrs Trump for any distress that our publication caused her. To settle Mrs Trump's two lawsuits against us, we have agreed to pay her damages and costs."
The amount paid was not disclosed, but it is understood to be around $3m (£2.4m) which would cover her legal actions the Daily Mail in the UK and the US.
She was once 'sworn in as US president'
Years before her arrival at the White House, Melania appeared in a low-budget Slovenian fashion advert in which she was sworn in as president of the United States.
The then 23-year-old model was seen leaving a plane, being escorted by the Secret Service, chatting with reporters and going through an inauguration ceremony.
The ad, which has been rediscovered by the US Spanish-language TV network Univision, was intended to depict "the first woman president of the United States on the day of her inauguration".
Jozica Brodaric, one of the ad's scriptwriters, said: "It is the most extraordinary historical coincidence. [Melania] looked refined, elegant, really presidential."
In "another bizarre moment of foreshadowing" in the advert, Melania is seen signing a document on immigration, the Daily Star says.
Natalija Gorscak, director of Slovenian National Television, says: "In the document, she is approving three people to cross the border between two countries, it's an immigration document."
According to the Daily Star, the advertisement has "led to speculation that the reason [Melania] is so miserable being the President's wife is because she was actually destined to be president herself".
She only follows five people on twitter... and one of those is Barack Obama
Her marriage may be going through a rough patch, but Melania has decided to hit back at her husband where it hurts – on his favoured medium Twitter. The First Lady only follows five people on the social media platform, but her most recent addition, and the only one not connected to the Trump administration, happens to be one of her husband's least favourite people – Barack Obama.
On her official @FLOTUS Twitter account, with its 9.77 million followers, Melania previously followed her husband, @POTUS; second lady Karen Pence, @SecondLady; Vice President Mike Pence, @VP; and @realDonaldTrump, in that order.
Trump's dislike of his predecessor dates back to the so-called 'birther' row and the now infamous White House Correspondents Dinner in 2012 when the then-president openly mocked Trump who sat there stony faced. Legend has it that was the moment Trump decided to run for office and the rest, as they say, is history.
Why the First Lady started following Obama, with whom she has had little interaction, is unknown, says Newsweek, but it will do little to dispel rumours she is try to get revenge on her husband after news emerged of his affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.
She has twice been accused of plagiarism
Melania Trump was accused of plagiarism for a second time last week after reporters noticed a similarity between her recently announced "Be Best" initiative and an Obama-era document.
Trump launched the campaign on Monday to "encourage adults to help teach children to be good citizens", ABC News writes.
But several news outlets noted that text and graphics in the accompanying booklet she distributed "bore a striking resemblance" to information handed out during the Obama administration, the BBC says.
As news of the similarities spread, Trump's communications director Stephanie Grisham published an "extraordinary" statement says The New York Times, which "admonished the news media for reporting on the plagiarism claims".
"Our office will continue to focus on helping children, and I encourage members of the media to attempt to Be Best in their own professions," Grisham wrote, "and focus on some of the children and programs Mrs. Trump highlighted in her remarks yesterday."
This is not the first time the first lady has been caught out by accusations of plagiarism. In 2016, a large part of a speech she delivered at the Republican national convention appeared to be lifted directly from a 2008 speech made by Michelle Obama, her predecessor.
Questions surround her early work in the US
According to Associated Press, Melania may have worked without the correct papers when she began modelling in the US in 1996.
The news agency claims the First Lady was paid for ten jobs while still on a visitor visa, which "would have been outside the bounds of her visa". Detailed accounting ledgers, contracts and related documents from that time reportedly show Melania earned $20,056 between August and October 1996, when she officially obtained permission to work in the US.
In a tweet last year - while her husband was pledging to deport undocumented immigrants - Melania said she had with "100 per cent certainty" gone through the proper channels to work legally in the US.
She also provided a letter from her immigration lawyer confirming her claim.
And how she won an 'Einstein visa' to settle permanently
She has also faced mounting questions over how she was able to obtain a so-called "Einstein visa" that allowed her to settle permanently in the US.
The elite EB-1 programme is normally reserved for people with "extraordinary ability", such as renowned academic researchers, international business executives, Olympic athletes and Oscar-winning actors.
At the time she was granted a green card in 2001, "her credentials included runway shows in Europe, a Camel cigarette billboard ad in Times Square and - in her biggest job at the time - a spot in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, which featured her on the beach in a string bikini, hugging a six-foot inflatable whale" says The Independent.
Her ability to secure a green card set her on the path to US citizenship and put her in the position to sponsor the legal residency of her parents, who are now close to obtaining their own citizenship.
This could prove embarrassing for the White House, after Trump tweeted last November that this practice of so-called chain migration "must end now".
She 'would likely fail' her husband's proposed immigration screening test
Over the course of the campaign, Melania surprised some commentators by enthusiastically backing her husband's tough rhetoric on migrants, despite being one herself.
Speaking to MSNBC last year she said: "I follow the law. 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'."
However, it has been suggested she that had her husband's proposed immigration screening existed when came to the United States, she would most likely have not been allowed to stay in the country, because she does not have a college degree.
CNN has pointed out that the first lady first entered the US on a H-1B visa – one of those Trump's Republican administration is trying to restrict.
However, Atlantic magazine's journalist Julia Ioffe sparked controversy when she told CNN that Trump's supporters were not concerned if his Slovenian-born wife herself could pass that screening because she is a "beautiful white woman from Europe, and we like those".
But she opposes Mexican border separation
Following a prolonged absence, which fuelled rumours of a rift between the couple, Melania returned to the media spotlight last month to openly criticise one of her husband's major immigration policies.
The former model, who has faced questions about her own immigration status, denounced new measures introduced in May which separated children from their parents at the Mexican border.
"Mrs Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform," her communications director, Stephanie Grisham, told CNN. "She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart."
It marked the first major public intervention by the first lady since she returned from almost a month's absence following a kidney procedure.
She racked up a huge bill on flights
Melania caused waves when she became the first first lady to decide against moving into the White House after her husband was sworn in; instead choosing to spend the first three months of the Trump presidency living in New York with her son, Barron.
Now the Wall Street Journal has learned that during that period her travel between New York, Washington DC and Florida, where the president's Mar-a-Lago resort is, cost taxpayers more than $675,000 (£478,000).
CNN People says every time the First Lady flies from Andrews Air Force base outside of Washington to Palm Beach International Airport on a C-32A plane it costs taxpayers an estimated $16,168 (£11,000) per hour.
It has also been revealed that the upgrade of Air Force One's two refrigerators, ordered by Donald Trump, cost taxpayers $23.7 million, according to Fortune.
While there is no suggestion of impropriety when it comes to the First Lady's travel, "political bellyaching over the cost of taxpayer-funded travel associated with the president and his family is American tradition, especially from members of the opposing political party", says the Daily Mail.
Perhaps the biggest critic of former president Barack Obama's travel expenditure was none other than Donald Trump.
In one of his many comments during the Obama presidency, in 2012, Trump called a ski trip to Aspen by the first family "insensitive" and complained "they love to spend money".
Yet that has not stopped Trump repeatedly travelling to his Mar-a-Largo estate, dubbed the Winter White House, with Newsweek claiming the total cost of his flights in his first year as president came to over $6.6 million (£4.7 million).
She was the subject of a creepy call with Howard Stern
In 1999, when her husband was considering running as president, representing 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.
She doesn't hire nannies
In a December 2016 interview with Us Weekly, Melania remarked her duty as a mother comes before all her other responsibilities. The First Lady has never hired a nanny for her now 11-year-old son Barron.
Since his birth, she says she has happily put some of her fashion projects on hold to give him her full attention and be involved in his school activities, including picking him up and dropping him off to school. She said she only turns her attention to her business during school hours.
"I don't have a nanny. I have a chef, and I have my assistant, and that's it. I do it myself," she told Harpers Bazaar. "You know, those hours with your child are really important ones, even if it's just the two of you, being quiet in the car together"
The news that Melania's husband had never changed a nappy in his life proved controversial in the US, leading some commentators to accuse the President of being out of touch with modern parenting, says Huffington Post UK.
In an interview with Parenting Magazine, Melania insisted she didn't mind, commenting: "I didn't want him to change the diapers or put Barron to bed. I love every minute of it."
She misses her life before the drama of the White House
A source close to Melania has told People Magazine that the First Lady's life has become a "24/7 tornado" since her husband Donald Trump was inaugurated 14 months ago.
"What's happening is exactly what she didn't want to happen," the source said. "They've literally become like the Kardashians: scandals, divorces, headlines.
"No one was paying attention to her two years ago," the source added. "They went about their day. Now it's a 24/7 tornado. She hates it."
Throughout the seemingly never-ending series of controversies, Melania has found herself longing for "the peace and simplicity of her pre-White House life". In an interview with the magazine in September 2015, Melania told People that she enjoyed spending her free time playing tennis, doing pilates as well as caring for her 11-year-old son Barron.
A second source confirmed that Melania misses her life before her husband ran for president: "She was able to do whatever she wanted and have her family with her much of the time."
"She's someone that likes routine. Early to bed, early to rise, take care of herself, etc. And he's 24/7 on TV and electronics and thinking and scheming," the first source said. "They are as a couple exactly how you think they would be: complete opposites. So this lifestyle doesn't work for her."
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