Melania Trump Biography

Melania Trump (born Melanija Knavs , April 26, 1970; Germanized to Melania Knauss) is the current First Lady of the United States. Before marrying future President Donald Trump in 2005, she worked as a fashion model; by 2016 she considered herself a "full-time mom".

She was born in the city of Novo Mesto in Slovenia, then known as the Socialist Republic of Slovenia within Yugoslavia. She became a permanent resident of the United States in 2001, and obtained U.S. citizenship in 2006.

Trump is the first naturalized U.S. citizen to become First Lady, and the second First Lady born overseas after Louisa Adams, who was born in London to an American father.

Early life

Melanija Knavs was born in Novo Mesto in the southeast of Slovenia, which was then part of Yugoslavia, on April 26, 1970. She is a daughter of Amalija (ne Ul?nik) and Viktor Knavs, who managed car and motorcycle dealerships for a state-owned vehicle manufacturer. Her father was from the nearby town of Rade?e. Her mother came from the village of Raka, and was a patternmaker at the children's clothing manufacturer "Jutranjka" in Sevnica. When later working as a model, she changed the Slovene form of her last name Knavs to the German Knauss.

She grew up in a modest apartment in a housing block in Sevnica, in Slovenia's Lower Sava Valley. She has a sister and an older half-brother, whom she reportedly has never met, from her father's previous relationship. As the Communist Party in Slovenia upheld atheism, Melania's father did not publicly sponsor her Christian sacraments of baptism or first communion. As such, Melania was secretly baptized by Franc ?ampa, the parish priest of St. Lawrence's Church in Raka, on June 14, 1970.

When she was a teenager, the family moved to a two-story house in Sevnica, and as a high school student, she lived in a high-rise apartment in Ljubljana. Melanija attended the Secondary School of Design and Photography in Ljubljana, and studied at the University of Ljubljana for one year before dropping out. She speaks English, French, Italian, and German, in addition to Serbo-Croatian and her native Slovene. In President Trump's first foreign trip in May 2017, Melania spoke in Italian with children at Bambino Ges Hospital, a pediatric hospital in Rome.

Career and immigration to the United States

Knauss began modeling at age 5 and started doing commercials at 16, when she posed for the Slovenian fashion photographer Stane Jerko. At 18, she signed with a modeling agency in Milan, Italy. She was named runner-up in the 1992 Jana Magazine "Look of the Year" contest, held in Ljubljana, which promised its top three contestants an international modeling contract.

After attending the University of Ljubljana for one year, she modeled for fashion houses in Milan and Paris, and relocated to New York City in 1996. Her work began prior to receiving a legal work visa. In the United States she appeared on the covers of In Style Weddings, New York Magazine, Avenue, Philadelphia Style, Vanity Fair and Vogue. She modeled for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 2000. Her modeling career was associated with Irene Marie Management Group and Donald Trump's Trump Model Management.

Applying as a model of "extraordinary ability", Melania obtained a green card and became a lawful permanent resident in 2001; she gained United States citizenship in 2006.

Marriage

Melania moved to New York City in 1996 and met her future husband, Donald Trump, in September 1998 at a Fashion Week party in New York City. He had been separated from Marla Maples since May 1997, and entered a steady relationship with Melania; the new couple gained attention after a 1999 interview on The Howard Stern Show. In 2000, she appeared with Trump while he campaigned for that year's Reform Party presidential nomination. Trump described their long courtship in 2005, and stated: "We literally have never had an argument, forget about the word 'fight' ... We just are very compatible. We get along."

After becoming engaged in 2004, Melania married Trump in an Anglican service on January 22, 2005, at The Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida, followed by a reception in the ballroom at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. The event was attended by celebrities such as Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, Rudy Giuliani, Heidi Klum, Star Jones, P. Diddy, Shaquille O'Neal, Barbara Walters, Conrad Black, Regis Philbin, Simon Cowell, Kelly Ripa, then-Senator Hillary Clinton, and former president Bill Clinton. At the reception, Billy Joel serenaded the crowd with "Just the Way You Are" and supplied new lyrics to the tune of "The Lady Is a Tramp". The Trumps' wedding ceremony and reception were widely covered by the media. Melania wore a $200,000 dress made by John Galliano of the house of Christian Dior.

On March 20, 2006, Melania gave birth to their son Barron William Trump. She suggested his middle name, while her husband suggested his first name.

Role in 2016 U.S. presidential election

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In November 2015, when asked about her husband's presidential campaign, Trump said: "I encouraged him because I know what he will do and what he can do for America. He loves the American people and he wants to help them." Trump played a relatively small role in her husband's campaign"?atypical of spouses of presidential running mates.

In July 2016, Trump's official website was redirected to Trump.com. On Twitter, she stated that her site was outdated and did not "accurately reflect [her] current business and professional interests".

On July 18, 2016, Trump gave a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention. The speech contained a paragraph that was nearly identical to a paragraph of Michelle Obama's speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. When asked about the speech, Trump said she wrote the speech herself "with as little help as possible". Two days later, Trump staff writer Meredith McIver took responsibility and apologized for the "confusion".

In February 2017, Trump sued Mail Media, the owner of The Daily Mail, seeking $150 million in damages over an August 2016 article which falsely alleged that she had worked for an escort service during her modeling days. The Mail retracted the article, apologized, and printed the retraction from the blogger they were quoting, who said: "I had no legitimate factual basis to make these false statements and I fully retract them". The lawsuit stated the article had ruined her "unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to establish "multimillion dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which Plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world". Her claim raised potential ethical questions, but the first lady is not an employee of the government and not a government official. On February 18, the lawsuit was amended, removing the language about her earning potential and focusing instead on emotional distress. In April 2017, the parties settled the lawsuit and the Daily Mail issued a statement that said, "We accept that these allegations about Mrs Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them." The Mail agreed to pay Trump $2.9 million.

Five days before the election, she told a crowd of supporters in Pennsylvania: "Our culture has gotten too mean and too rough, especially to children and teenagers. It is never OK when a 12-year-old girl or boy is mocked, bullied, or attacked. It is terrible when that happens on the playground. And it is absolutely unacceptable when it is done by someone with no name hiding on the internet." Regarding the contrast of her platform with her husband's use of Twitter during his campaign, Melania said shortly after the election that she had rebuked him "all the time" but that "he will do what he wants to do in the end".

First Lady of the United States

Melania assumed the role of First Lady of the United States on January 20, 2017. She is the second foreign-born woman to hold this title (after Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, who was born in 1775 in London to an American father and British mother). She is the first First Lady to be a naturalized (rather than birthright) citizen of the United States, and the first to speak English as a second language. At , she is also one of the tallest First Ladies to hold the office, tied with Michelle Obama and Eleanor Roosevelt. She continued living in Trump Tower with her son Barron until the end of the 2016-17 school year, and moved to the White House on June 11, 2017.

Her Secret Service code name is "Muse" (beginning with the same letter as Trump's code name, "Mogul", per Secret Service tradition).

When asked by The New York Times in 1999 what her role would be if Donald Trump were to become president, Melania replied: "I would be very traditional. Like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy." In 2016, she told CNN her focus as First Lady would be to help women and children. She also said she would combat cyberbullying, especially among children, having quit social media herself due to the "negativity".

The first White House event led by Trump was a luncheon for International Women's Day on March 8, 2017. Trump spoke to an audience of women about her life as a female immigrant, and about working towards gender equality both domestically and abroad, noting the role of education as a tool against gender inequality.

In March 2017, Slovenia honored her by introducing "First Lady" wine, a red wine produced in the region near her hometown of Sevnica.

In February 2017, at a Florida rally, Melania Trump led the crowd in the recitation of Lord's Prayer. Later, during her and her husband's visit to Vatican City in May 2017, Trump revealed that she is a Catholic, the first Catholic to live in the White House since President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie over half a century earlier.