Former friend of Melania Trump publishes book about her relationship with the first lady of the United States
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff assures in her book that the first lady has a great rivalry against the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump; Melania Trump's spokeswoman rejects the allegations.
A new book written by former best friend of the US first lady Melania Trump, who later served as her adviser in the east wing of the White House, fuels speculation about the rivalries of the Trump family. The author, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former employee of Vogue magazine, was one of Melania's best friends for 15 years. Until the first lady suddenly fired her in 2018, after the press revealed the immense cost of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration ceremony in January 2017, co-hosted by Wolkoff. The 351-page book, which ranks fourth on Amazon's best-sellers list, is illustrated with photos of some text messages exchanged by the women, riddled with emojis sent by the first lady, and is titled "Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall Of My Friendship With the First Lady "(Melania and I: the rise and fall of my friendship with the first lady). The former adviser reveals in the book intimacies of the family, such as the rivalry between the first lady and the daughter of Donald Trump's first marriage, Ivanka, 38, whom Melania calls "princess." During the inauguration, Wolkoff says, an operation called "Block Ivanka" was organized to prevent her from assuming a role that overshadowed Melania at the ceremony.
Wolkoff presents the enigmatic 50-year-old former Slovenian model as an ultra-pragmatic, crocodile-skinned person who doesn't care what the press or critics say. When she visited a Texas detention center in 2018 where migrant minors were separated from their parents with a jacket that read on the back, "I really don't care. What about you?", It was because she really didn't care,. she wrote.
The former adviser says that in the middle of the crisis of separation of immigrant families, Melania complained to her about the coverage that the press was doing on the subject during a telephone conversation.
"They are not with their parents and it is sad. But the border guards told me that children say 'Can you give me a bed? Will I have a drawer for my clothes?' It is more than what they have in their countries, where they sleep on the ground. " Melania's spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said the book "just doesn't tell the truth." Winston Wolkoff reproaches the first lady for not having defended her against accusations of abusive spending at the inauguration, and told CBS on Monday that he is collaborating with federal investigators on possible fraud committed on the occasion.
"Americans are very curious about their first lady, and since Melania is particularly cautious, they want to know more," said Katherine Jellison, a professor at Ohio University. "Stepmother-stepdaughter tensions have been deeply anchored in public opinion ... since Cinderella."
