“I would be very traditional.
I would support him.
I would do a lot of social obligations,” she said.
The interview, which was conducted in 1999, has proven to be rather prescient.
A little over five years later, Melania and Donald tied the knot.
And about a decade after that, they became 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s official residents.
This is the transformation of Melania Trump, from young aspiring model in Slovenia to former first lady.
“She was a very good student,” Jelancic toldABC News.
“She was an angel.”
In an interview withParenting Magazine, she recounted her earliest inspiration: “I always liked beauty and fashion.
My mom was in the fashion business.
I was 5 years old when I did my first catwalk,” she recalled.
“My mom loved fashion, we loved to travel and go to Italy and Paris.
I was always very tall and skinny.
Sometimes I was teased, but I was never embarrassed.
I always liked myself.
I knew what I wanted to do.
I found my passion at such an early age.
It helped with my confidence.”
She also cultivated a sure hand as an artist, perhaps learned from her mother, according toGQ.
“Melania never wore anything from the store,” a friend told the magazine.
She sketched out original ideas, and the sewing would be tasked to her mother and sister.
“School was the most important thing to her,” he told GQ.
But, true to her passion, she soon had a change of heart.
“I didn’t have shoes for her because she had very big feet.
The other models had smaller feet,” Jerko remembered in the aforementioned GQ feature.
But as far as he was concerned, that was a sign of what was yet to come.
“When you live on big feet, you live big,” she said.
However, the then-26-year-old model’s plans slowed down.
“It was a frustrating age for models, the late 20s.
It’s not a friendly industry,” Trump’s former roommate Matthew Atanian recalled to GQ.
“She was going to castings every day and not succeeding every day.
She said things were very different in Europe, that she had been more successful.”
“I came here for my career, and I did so well, I moved here.
It never crossed my mind to stay here without papers,” she said in a 2016Harper’s Bazaarinterview.
“Every few months you gotta fly back to Europe and stamp your visa.”
This tenacity paid off.
“She admitted it to me.
She just said it needed to be done to get more lingerie jobs.”
Of particular note is her now infamous British GQ spread, in the nude, in 2000.
In a 2015 interview withABC News’Barbara Walters, Melania gracefully acknowledged her former career.
“I think people will always judge.
“Nothing more than you see every year in Sports Illustrated.”
“I was not starstruck,” she recalled to GQ.
“I didn’t know much about Donald Trump.”
After they were introduced, Donald asked Melania for her number.
Instead, she snagged his digits.
I wanted to see what his intention [was].
It tells you a lot from the man what kind of number he gives you.
He gave me all of his numbers.”
She kept her apartment to have her own space because of this."
But peace would be made, as the two struck up a romance again shortly after.
A hometown friend shared their own theories in the same profile.
“It’s about all that power and protection,” they said.
“I think she needed a strong man, a father figure.”
He would later replace her puny pebble with a 25-carat on their 10th anniversary.
When Melania walked down the aisle the following year, her ensemble certainly was anything but understated.
Her Christian Dior gown’s train clocked in at 13 feet, and the veil at 16 feet.
The spectacular creation was featured on the cover of Vogue.
New York event designer Preston Bailey toldThe Hollywood Reporterthat he helped bring the bride’s wedding vision to life.
And afterward, the newlyweds had a reception tipping the scales at $35 million.
No small number for the woman who grew up wearing handmade clothes.
I didn’t want [Donald Trump] to change the diapers or put Barron to bed."
“My life is very normal for me.
Maybe for some people they would not think that.
But for me it is,” she said.
“I know my husband.
We have a great relationship.
We are both very independent.
We know what our roles are and we are happy with them.”
She continued, “I don’t think you oughta be with your husband every minute of every day.
You know that saying, ‘Work hard and play harder?’
That’s what we do.”
She kept active in creating a skincare line and jewelry collections.
“It’s my choice not to be there.
After Donald was elected, Melania didn’t change course too much.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, believed she holds more power: “I would say no.
I think she’s far greater than the 50 percent.”
When it came time for Donald to campaign ahead of the 2016 election, Melania called her own shots.
“I’m choosing not to go political in public because that is my husband’s job.
“But I chose not to be on the campaign.
I have my own mind.
I am my own person, and I think my husband likes that about me.”
What’s more, she acknowledged that she and her husband don’t always see eye-to-eye.
“Do I agree with him all the time?
No,” she said.
Every now and then, she shares when she doesn’t agree with him.
During Donald’s 2016 campaign, Melania was called out for his crude remarks about women.
This does not represent the man that I know …
I hope people will accept his apology, as I have.”
And she had a big job ever since the start of her husband’s campaign: responding to critics.
Melania herself admitted to having an admiration of Jackie O in her aforementioned interview with Harper’s Bazaar.
“She had a very beautiful, elegant, simple but feminine style,” she stated.
emblazoned across the back.
She added, “There was no hidden message.”
He continued, “Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!”
Months later, the first lady spoke out about the jacket in an interview withABC News.
In 2018, Melania Trump embarked on her first solo trip to promote her initiative.
Of course, Trump’s Be Best campaign was and is not immune to criticism.
Trump spoke out about such criticism at a conference in Washington, D.C., in November 2018.
Public outrage followed until the claims were debunked, but the damage was done.
Then she added her own flair or personal input to it,” he added.
As previously mentioned, some of Melania’s changes raised some eyebrows and a few people’s blood pressure.
The Washington Post, however, noted that it was a much-needed alteration.
To top it off, it was also revealed that no one reviewed Melania’s speech before the convention.
She addressed the impact of the pandemic once again and praised the hardworking medical professionals on the front lines.
This caused widespread division and unrest, which eventually led to the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
Apparently, one of the people who tried to convince the former president to concede was Melania Trump.
“She’s not a presence at Mar-a-Lago at all.
“She hates all of the legal problems and says very little about them anytime anywhere.
She leads her own life.”
Melania wasn’t by her husband’s side when the fourth indictment was brought against him in New Jersey.
“[T]his fourth indictment is another problem for her husband.
Not for her,” another source said.
Sources close to the former first lady toldPeoplein 2023 that Melania’s son is her top priority.
“She has always put him first.
She is a good mother,” an insider said.
“She has always surrounded herself with family.
She is a doting mother to Barron and very protective of him.
This is nothing new,” the tipster said.
At least, that’s what a handful of political experts toldAxios.
“Melania does what Melania wants,” political author Mary Jordan told the outlet.
“If he should win, that would be the worst-case scenario for her.”
For you and us both, Melania.
What’s more, the Log Cabin Republicans are all in on Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 election.
“Donald Trump is the best choice for all of us.”
Melania held another fundraiser for the organization at Trump Tower in July 2024.
A source toldPage Sixthat the former first lady was “elegant and eloquent.”
“She took the time to speak with everyone,” they said.
A guest added, “Melania took photos and gave a beautiful speech about the importance of unity.
She also said about the election, ‘We will see what happens, but, we must win.’
“He is her world.
She is proud of him, and she is the primary decision maker on Barron and his future.”
She did not specify what these commitments were.
Throughout his widely publicized court trial, Melania kept her distance.
She never accompanied her husband to court nor commented publicly on the proceedings or allegations against him.
When Donald was found guilty, Melania wasn’t at his side.
Melania, however, remained silent on the matter.
She recounted the moment Donald got hit by the bullet.
“Your need to summon your inner strength for such a terrible reason saddens me,” she wrote.
“We all want a world where respect is paramount, family is first, and love transcends.”
A few days after the shooting, she attended the RNC with her husband.
Prior to the attack,Melania was largely absent from Donald’s 2024 campaign trail.
