Melania Trump: From Trophy Woman to Woman of Influence
LONG FORMAT - In just a few years, the image of Melania Trump has totally changed. From a model considered as Donald Trump's trophy, she has become a woman who matters! After having underestimated her for a long time, the whole world was able to discover her true personality and how she knows how to be heard within her couple.
At 50, Melania Trump made her revolution. Since his meeting in the late 90s with "The Donald", 45th President of the United States very controversial, his life has changed dramatically. Between setbacks and victories, she has advanced and can even boast of having become the main asset of her husband. Barron's protective mother left her native Slovenia to become a model. But she has established herself as a woman of character within her couple, as well as within the White House as First Lady.
Free but influential, Melania knows how to bang her fist on the table when it comes to her son's education. At the end of 2020, she will also have known how to face the facts, after Donald's failure to be elected a second time. Often erased, all the more watched, the third wife Trump intrigues. Several testimonies describe a fifty-something who knows what she wants, who knows how to be heard and who could still be talked about in the coming years.
From Slovenia in the arms of Donald Trump
Melania Trump was born in 1970 in Slovenia, has a sister and a half-brother she does not know. We know very little about her childhood, and for good reason, she invented a story, her own, far removed from reality. Donald Trump therefore totally dramatized the childhood of his wife who would have left Slovenia quickly, affected by the war in Yugoslavia. "She lived very well, in a small suburban pavilion. A happy childhood with a loving father, who had - and who still has - a lot of influence on her.", Explained journalist Laurence Haïm in an interview with Le Point . And to add: "Slovenia was very little affected by the war in Yugoslavia, it lasted ten days in 1992. We are therefore far from the dramatic story that Donald Trump makes when he talks about it." So why is she so mysterious about her youth and why none of her old friends are spilling out into the media? Barron's mother allegedly gave her lawyer specific instructions: prosecute anyone who might reveal information about her past life.
Small, Melania is already very beautiful but if she goes very quickly towards styling then modeling, she knows that her knowledge will make the difference in an environment often criticized and considered very light. Spotted in the street when she was 17, she took her first photos. At this point in her life, she was studying design and architecture. However, in 1992, her life was completely turned upside down: modeling became a priority even if her activity was not really flourishing. For her, failure is not an option, as revealed by a former boyfriend, not hiding that she had big ambitions.
Melania Knavs, of her birth name, first worked as a model for several major brands in Milan and Paris, before continuing her career in New York from 1996. It is also thanks to fashion that she will meet Donald Trump. If she has worked with several famous modeling agencies including Trump Models, the much maligned company owned by Donald Trump and which was closed in 2017, it is not on this occasion that the couple saw each other for the first time but during of a party organized in Manhattan in 1998.
That day, this golf fan forgets the rules of decorum and follows her to the bathroom to ask for her number, but runs into a wall. "He wanted my number but was with someone, so obviously I refused. I said to him: 'I'm not giving you my number, give me yours and I'll call you.'" years ago in an interview with Harper's Bazaar. Sure of himself, Donald Trump still has all his numbers: the staff, the office, his New York residence ... She accepts and will eventually call him.
It was then in the shadows, Donald and Melania began a romantic relationship that quickly interested the press people. It must be said that they alternated ruptures and reconciliations. In 2004, the one who is already the father of 4 children asks for her hand, and it is a year later, on January 22, 2005, that they get married in Florida. At this wedding which Bill Clinton attended, Melania made a strong impression in a sparkling Dior dress valued at $ 100,000 (€ 85,000).
Photo caption: Melania and Donald Trump at their club in Mar-a-Lago, Florida in January 2007. The former Slovenian model and the real estate mogul are celebrating their two-year marriage.
Conquest of power together and marital negotiations
In 2016, when Donald Trump officially announces his intention to become the next President of the United States while Hilary Clinton is the favorite, many are laughing. A businessman at the head of the United States? And a former model still seen as a vase in First lady? Unthinkable! However, the couple appear more united than ever in this race for the White House and Barron's mother will reveal herself.
Many rumors ensured that the former model did not want her man to embark on this political race but as revealed by recent books, she was his first supporter, his (almost) infallible support. Because Donald listens to every word of his sweet. "I think he depends on her. He takes her seriously. I don't think Melania is afraid of him, unlike the others around him who are controlled by him. She doesn't care about his mood. I think it's the opposite, actually. I think he's worried about his, "Sam Nunberg, political advisor to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, told Tatler.
To support her husband, Melania Trump will not hesitate to put herself forward and lead meetings. She proves that she is not just a physique, a doll. She is the wife of the possible future president and she can have political speeches. Looks change on Trump's third wife, especially as she presents herself as an "independent woman" in speeches. And if she has been awkward at times, like when she was accused of plagiarizing old Michelle Obama speeches, she does not fold and knows how to come back in force.
The couple managed, over the weeks, to garner votes. On December 19, 2016, Donald Trump was officially elected President of the Republic. When he was inaugurated in January 2017, all eyes were on Melania, now considered, admired. Everyone is wondering how she is going to understand this new role ... And it is by giving her husband an ultimatum that she will show the whole world that she is a person of character, who knows what she wants. and not just a charming asset.
She refuses to move into the White House at the same time as her husband, and lets him understand that she will not give in until he agrees to renegotiate their marriage contract. She wants her son Barron to be officially considered the perfect match for his elders. To the media, they will say that Melania does not want to move during Barron's school year. In fact, for several months, they negotiated and the ex-model made her husband change his mind.
Photo caption: Melania and Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago, in January 2010. The billionaire has just joined the Republican Party and is already thinking of thwarting Barack Obama, elected President of the United States in November 2008.
A not so docile First lady
In the White House, Melania Trump will dictate her rules and no one can go against them, even her husband. Not very demonstrative, often hidden behind dark glasses, she often made the buzz, in spite of herself. Melania has been seen to reject Donald Trump's tender gestures on several occasions. He himself must have done the best he could with Ivanka. Indeed, stepmother and stepdaughter did not get along the best in the world ... In her book Melania & Me, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the former adviser to the First Lady, revealed that the president's favorite daughter was nicknamed "Princess" in private and that Melania had participated in "Operation Block Ivanka" to prevent her from appearing in the photographs of Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony, in January 2017. The latter pays him back because she gave it the unflattering nickname "The portrait".
Between them, the links were especially broken during the installation at the White House in 2017. At the time, Melania had stayed in New York with Barron for a few months. Meanwhile, Ivanka Trump tried to take her stepmother's place. She had asked to rename the First Lady's Office to First Family Office. She had not achieved her goals.
The current tenant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, often accused of performing cosmetic surgery, has laid down her rules at the White House. Thus, she made a separate room with her husband whom she did not hesitate to contradict publicly. Last spring, in the midst of the first wave of the coronavirus health crisis, Melania opposed her husband on social networks. "I ask everyone to take social distancing and wearing a mask / face cover seriously. Covid-19 is a virus that can spread to anyone," she noted as the president was reluctant to put on a mask and didn't care about social distancing. A new proof of its independence.
Finally, between her husband and her son, it is always her son that she will put first. After asking for treatment equal to that of her brothers and sisters during the renegotiation of her marriage contract, Melania, like a real wolf mother, decided to take charge of the education of her only child. Very invested, it is rumored that she would have even used the piston so that the 14-year-old boy could go to the best schools.
Photo caption: Melania and Donald Trump at Arlington Cemetery, Virginia, November 11, 2020. The 45th President of the United States is still challenging Joe Biden's presidential victory. The First Lady gives her her support, by appearing at her side, an exercise that she will have however little tasted during the 4 previous years.
New life after the White House?
And now ? What will Melania Trump's future look like? If in public, she faces up with her husband, in private, the situation is different since she tries to convince him to accept his defeat against Joe Biden. While Donald Trump has let it be known that he would resort to justice to contest his defeat in the US presidential election, CNN assures that his wife is doing what is necessary to reason with him. A recognition of defeat that would have a taste of future freedom for Melania? Indeed, for several weeks, the rumors of divorce have been insistent. "Melania counts the minutes that her husband has left before leaving the White House, in order to finally be able to divorce", noted Omarosa Manigault Newman, former collaborator of Donald Trump, in his book Unhinged, published in 2018.
What if the time was not for divorce at all? In this case, Melania could live in the magnificent property of Mar-a-Lago that she refuses to Ivanka and that she loves so much. And to live, whether with or without Donald Trump, she can count on an annual pension of $ 20,000 (or € 16,000). A tidy sum that she will add to her very significant savings and to future paid projects that she will be offered.
Photo caption: Melania and Donald Trump, on the evening of the results of the US presidential election, at the White House, November 4, 2020. Symbolic shot: the First lady is already taking a tangent. The news will not be long in being spread: she is preparing to write a book on her years as First Lady.
