Was Trump married to Marla Maples when he met Melania?
The US president and his wife, quarantined after testing positive for coronavirus, have been together for 22 years
The 'crush' started at a party in Manhattan in 1998, when he left his partner for the then 28-year-old Slovenian model
Jeffrey Epstein took credit before he died for presenting them, but there are other theories
"Tonight, Melania and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through it together!" This is how the president of the United States, Donald Trump, announced today that both he and his wife have coronavirus, after the test that was carried out after his director of Communication, Hope Hicks, also contracted the disease.
The American first lady has also commented on her positive Twitter. "Like too many Americans this year, the President and I are self-quarantined at home after testing positive for COVID-19. We feel good and I have postponed all my upcoming engagements. Please make sure to be careful and we will all get through it together." Melania has written.
Trump and Melania, initially asymptomatic, are now undergoing quarantine, confined to the White House, in the middle of the campaign and only one month before the elections.
A 'crush' that started 22 years ago
Donald Trump does not mince words to talk about his professional or personal life, but what the president of the United States has never revealed is how he met his fourth wife, Melania Trump, with whom he has overcome several crises and who is now practicing more than ever her role as "the good wife" before the next electoral appointment.
Jeffrey Epstein, Francesco Belcaro, Paolo Zampolli ... There are several theories about the person who introduced them, but what is known is how their first meeting was.
It was 22 years ago, in 1998, when Trump attended a party for Fashion Week at a Manhattan nightclub. Then Trump was 52 years old and still married, albeit separated from his second wife, Marla Maples. He attended the event with the one he was his partner at the time, Celina Midelfart. There, "someone" introduced him to a stunning 28-year-old supermodel: Melania Knauss.
"I went crazy," Trump told Larry King on CNN eight years later. “There was another great supermodel sitting next to Melania, who she was supposed to meet. They told me: 'Look, there's a girl there ..... I said:' Forget about her. Who is the one on the left? 'And she was Melania. "
Trump was so spellbound by her beauty that he quickly got rid of her companion and asked Melania for her phone number. But she preferred that he give her his.
Melania said she felt "great chemistry and energy" with the one who would later become her husband, but she refused to give him her phone number because she wasn't sure she was serious, she told her Harpers Bazaar in 2016.
The former model said she was reassured by the fact that Trump gave her up to four phone numbers, including those for her private homes in New York and Mar-a-Lago.
She made him wait several weeks until she finally called him and soon they had their first date and thus began a relationship of more than two decades together.
Who introduced the couple?
According to the New York Times, the person who introduced them was his friend Jeffrey Epstein, the businessman convicted of trafficking in minors who died in August 2019, hanging himself in his cell. "It was I who introduced him to his fourth wife," Epstein would have claimed before he died.
Trump and Epstein's friendship was forged between 1980 and 2000, when they were neighbors in Palm Beach and shared parties in Manhattan.
“I've known Jeff for 15 years. A fantastic guy, "Trump told New York magazine in 2002." It's really fun to be with him. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are younger. "
Epstein, Trump and President Tom Barrack's friend were "a bunch of nightlife musketeers," wrote Michael Wolff in his book Fire and Fury. But after the child abuse allegations against Epstein, Trump said they were actually "not that close" and that "I was never a big fan of him."
However, other media such as Page Six point to the Italian Francesco Belcaro, an event organizer in New York, as Trump and Melania's 'matchmaker'.
This would have made it known himself to one of the guests at other of his parties, ensuring that he was the one who really introduced Trump and Melania, and that what was published in other media was "false."
But according to the version closest to Donald and Melania Trump, the person who really brought them together was the modeling agent Paolo Zampolli. The Italian was the one who organized the party at the Kit Cat Club, where the then famous real estate mogul fell in love with the beautiful Slovenian model.
After a three-year courtship, Trump proposed to Melania in 2001, with a 10-carat diamond engagement ring.
The couple tied the knot in 2005 in Palm Beach, in a star-studded wedding that included Billy Joel, who performed for the couple, Barbara Walters, Matt Lauer, and interestingly, former Democratic President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary. .
Donald Trump has five children, Barron (13 years old) with Melania and four others from previous marriages: Ivanka, Donald, Tiffany and Eric.
A relationship of ups and downs
In their 22 years of relationship and 15 of marriage, Trump and Melania have gone through many ups and downs, starring in some awkward moments even in front of the cameras, but they have always stuck together.
Last June, the forced smile of Melania with her husband in one of their public appearances in the middle of the wave of riots in the country for the 'black lives matter', once again exposed the distant relationship between the president of the United States and the first lady.
Más forzada que la sonrisa de Melania Trump pic.twitter.com/oNhf1wXWSV
— Damien Thorn🎗🤘 (@calamordor) June 3, 2020
This grimace wasn't the first public sign of disgust Melania had shown at her appearances with Trump in recent years.
During the investiture ceremony of her husband in January 2017, one of her smiles turned into an expression of sadness as the American president took the oath:
#NoSeLoPierda Melania Trump y su "tristeza" en investidura de #Trump https://t.co/rlDm9A8D1A pic.twitter.com/Y1Ru0KtazM
— Las Noticias (@_LASNOTICIASMTY) January 24, 2017
And in the months that followed, Melania was seen repeatedly trying to get rid of her husband's hand when he tried to hold her:
First Lady Melania Trump doesn’t look too happy with the hand holding pic.twitter.com/FqqGX99sVl
— The Sun (@TheSun) January 15, 2020
They denied crisis due to rumors of infidelity
The Trumps faced rumors of a crisis in their marriage, shortly after their election in 2017, following the unveiling of two alleged extramarital affairs by the president, with former Playboy model Karen McDougal and with porn actress Stormy Daniels , something he denies.
Melania Trump, then assured that she did not care about the alleged infidelities of her husband, and she denied problems in the couple. "I am a mother and a first lady, so I have much bigger issues to think about," Melania told ABC News.
