Why does Melania Trump always look sad?
The first lady of the United States has skyrocketed in popularity for herself and far exceeds that of her criticized husband. This is the story of the expressionless woman who has gradually won the hearts of a skeptical country.
"I am an immigrant," Melania Trump declared on November 1 of last year, during a speech she gave in the state of Pennsylvania to support her husband's campaign for the presidency. "No one values America's freedom and opportunity as much as I do," she added. Just over two months later, on January 20 of this year, Mrs. Trump arrived with her husband in Washington for her inauguration as president.
In front of the United States Capitol, Donald Trump swore to uphold his country's constitution and fulfill his duties as head of state. The New York tycoon swore his oath with his hand on a pair of Bibles: one given to him by his mother in 1955 and one Abraham Lincoln had sworn on 156 years earlier. His wife, standing next to her son Barron Trump, held them. At the time, he was the 45th President of the United States and she was the First Lady.
The country had, for the second time in its history, a First Lady who was not American by birth. The first had been the British Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincey Adams, who held office between 1825 and 1829. Like Adams, Mrs. Trump had arrived in the United States when she was already an adult, at the age of 25. It was 1995 and she came from Italy, where she worked as a model. Her homeland was, however, Slovenia.
Melanija Knavs, that's how her name is written in Slovenian, was born in 1970 in Novo Mesto, a small town that looks like an island because the river Krka borders it almost completely. At that time, Slovenia belonged to the former Yugoslavia. Melania Knauss – this is how her name is translated into English – grew up in the city of Sevnica, under the dictatorship of Marshal Tito. There she lived with her parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, and her sister Ines. Her father, Viktor, belonged to the Communist Party.
In the 1980s, after the death of Marshal Tito, ethnic, economic and political conflicts intensified in Yugoslavia, and little by little the republic began to disintegrate. At the time, being a teenager, young Melania dreamed of becoming a model. However, for her aspirations to have any chance, it took the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, which gave Slovenia independence.
In 1992, the Slovenian magazine Jana, a special magazine for women, opened the "Look of the Year" contest, in which it called on the young women of the country to enter the world of fashion, catwalks and modeling, to be part of a world that until then had been vetoed to the Slovenians. The contest prize was to enter European modeling. Young and single Melania Knauss entered the pageant, won, and gradually began working as a model. In addition, she studied one year of architecture and design at the University of Ljubljana.
She initially worked in her country, in print and television advertising. Later, Paris and Vienna, but above all Milan, appeared on her radar. She gained more prestige and specialized in modeling for jewelry. In the midst of that rising career, in 1995 Knauss met Paolo Zampolli, an Italian modeling businessman. Through him, at the age of twenty-five, the young Slovenian went to live in the United States in 1996.
She settled in New York. To do so, the government gave her an H-1B visa, which allowed her to work as a model. This kind of visa, of which years later her future husband would affirm that she only served to replace American labor with foreign labor, was given to people with special or high-level skills and abilities. The talent of today's First Lady has allowed her to be on the cover of magazines such as Vogue, Ocean Drive, Avenue and Harper's Baazar, as well as being photographed by photographers such as Helmut Newton.
With a career already established, in 1998 Paolo Zampolli invited the model Knauss to a party at the Kit Kat Club in New York. The event was organized by Donald Trump, then just a real estate mogul. That was when they met. A few months later, they started dating. In January 1999, the New York Times reported that Trump and Knauss had seen each other in a movie theater watching the movie Elizabeth, about Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Months later, in November of the same year, the same newspaper began to speculate that, if Donald Trump were to run for president, the model could be his First Lady. The 2000 elections were the first in which the businessman began to approach the idea of being president. As is known, he was not an official candidate and in 2001 George W. Bush took office. But that same year, the now 30-something Melania Knauss obtained her residency. Now she was Trump's girlfriend.
Three years later, in 2004, the couple got engaged. They married in 2005, at a wedding attended by, among others, Bill and Hillary Clinton. A year later, her only child, Barron, was born, and Mrs. Trump became an American citizen. Since the wedding, in addition, she increased her philanthropic activity and was linked to works related to children's problems. In 2005, the American Red Cross named her a goodwill ambassador, to which she has contributed for several years. And in 2010, Melania Trump became an entrepreneur and launched her own jewelry line.
This continued until mid-2015, when her husband announced himself as a candidate for the Republican Party for the presidential elections. She began to participate in the campaign, although discreetly and with few public appearances. Her husband's statements attracted the most attention, because, among other things, they proposed ideas such as building a wall between Mexico and the United States to prevent illegal immigration. In addition, they directed denigrating messages against groups such as Latinos, Muslims, refugees or women.
Among those few appearances, the one she made during the Republican convention that made her husband's candidacy official is memorable. On this occasion, Mrs. Trump gave a speech that was later accused of being a plagiarism of another that Michelle Obama had given. It was also a rarity for her to appear the week before the election, when she declared herself an immigrant and thanked the United States for the opportunities it provided her.
In both of her speeches, her voice felt foreign, with a non-native accent, but, at the same time, with a great understanding of the language she used to speak. Her voice is permeated by many other voices, as Melania Trump is perhaps the First Lady who has spoken the most languages: Slovenian, French, Serbian, German and English.
Thus, after being sworn in as President, Melania Trump's husband dared to say with her: “Starting today, a new vision will govern our land. From this day on, it will only be America first, America first." Melania Trump listened in silence, next to her son, from the chair she had been able to reach before that new vision ruled.
A few days ago, Google revealed that one of the main searches of Americans has been the question: Why is Melania Trump always sad? Her almost immovable face and the lack of euphoria that she has had in transcendental moments such as the possession of her husband or the first dance of the presidential couple generate almost worldwide curiosity.
The first months of her life as first lady, Melania did not appear at official events. And in fact, the first few months she did not even live in the White House. The first lady has starred in controversial moments, many due to the eccentricities of the Trump family. She attended the Texas floods in high heels, unfurled lavish Christmas decorations and kept the tabloid press on all the rumors about her past. However, her silence and her prudence in the face of the great issues of the United States have not allowed these issues to pass beyond gossip. In December a Gallup poll revealed that Americans like Melania because she has a popularity of almost 60 percent, a figure similar to the unfavorable image of her husband.
Despite the fact that circumstances change, Melania's face always registers just as expressionless. A complete photographic report from the Huffington Post portal shows that Melania's face has remained that way for the last 18 years. Many wonder why she does not smile at what in other times she would be considered one of the luckiest women in the world.
