Melania Trump facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Melania Trump
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Official portrait, 2017
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| First Lady of the United States | |
| In role January 20, 2017 – January 20, 2021 |
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| President | Donald Trump |
| Preceded by | Michelle Obama |
| Succeeded by | Jill Biden |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Melanija Knavs
April 26, 1970 Novo Mesto, SR Slovenia, SFR Yugoslavia |
| Citizenship | Yugoslavia (1970–1991) Slovenia (1991–present) United States (2006–present) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Barron Trump |
| Parents |
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| Residence | Mar-a-Lago |
| Signature |  |
Melania Trump (born Melanija Knavs; April 26, 1970) is a Slovenian-American former model who served as the first lady of the United States from 2017 to 2021 as the wife of former president Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.
Contents
Early life, family, and education
Melanija Knavs was born in Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia, now part of present-day Slovenia, on April 26, 1970. Her father, Viktor Knavs (born March 24, 1944), was from the nearby town of Radeče and managed car and motorcycle dealerships for a state-owned vehicle manufacturer. Her mother Amalija (née Ulčnik) (born July 9, 1945) came from the village of Raka and worked as a patternmaker at the children's clothing manufacturer Jutranjka in Sevnica. As a child, Melanija and other children of workers at the factory participated in fashion shows that featured children's clothing. She has an older sister, Ines, who is an artist and her "longtime confidant", and an older half-brother—whom she reportedly has never met—from her father's previous relationship.
Knavs grew up in a modest apartment in a housing block in Sevnica, in the Lower Sava Valley. Her father was in the League of Communists of Slovenia, which espoused a policy of state atheism. As was common, however, he had his daughters secretly baptized as Catholic.
When Knavs was a teenager, she moved with her family to a two-story house in Sevnica. As a high-school student, she lived in a high-rise apartment in Ljubljana. She attended the Secondary School of Design and Photography in the city, and studied architecture and design at the University of Ljubljana for one year before she dropped out.
Modeling career
European career
When she began her modeling career, Knavs took on an alternate spelling of her name, Melania Knauss, and she traveled Europe to find modeling work. Knauss started doing commercial work at sixteen when she posed for the Slovenian fashion photographer Stane Jerko. At eighteen, she signed with a modeling agency in Milan, Italy. Knauss modeled for fashion houses in Paris and Milan, where in 1995 she met Metropolitan Models co-owner Paolo Zampolli, a friend of her future husband Donald Trump, who was on a scouting trip in Europe. Zampolli urged her to travel to the U.S., where he said he would like to represent her. In 1996, Knauss moved to Manhattan.
New York career
Knauss moved to New York in 1996 to continue her career as a model. Zampolli encouraged her to live near and socialize among people in the industry, and he arranged for her to share an apartment with photographer Matthew Atanian in Zeckendorf Towers in Union Square. Once she arrived in the United States, she would return to her home country only sparingly and only for short periods of time. For her first weeks in the United States, her travel visa did not allow her to work in the country. Despite this, she accepted ten modeling jobs that earned her approximately $20,000. She then received an H-1B visa that allowed her to work.
In September 1998, Knauss met then-real estate mogul Donald Trump at a party, and the couple began dating while the latter was in the process of divorcing his second wife, Marla Maples. The divorce was finalized in 1999. Knauss continued her modeling career with her American magazine cover shoots, including In Style Weddings, New York magazine, Avenue, Philadelphia Style, and Vanity Fair Spain. In 1999, the couple gained attention after an interview with Howard Stern on his show.
They appeared together while Trump campaigned for the 2000 Reform Party presidential nomination. When asked by The New York Times what her role would be were he to become president, she replied: "I would be very traditional, like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy."
Role in 2016 presidential campaign
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In November 2015, she was asked about her husband's presidential campaign and replied: "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". She played a relatively small role in the campaign, which is atypical of spouses of presidential candidates. According to Washington Post's Mary Jordan, however, Melania was one of Trump's biggest supporters and continues to be a sounding board to him.
In 2016, Melania told CNN her focus as first lady would be to help women and children. She also said she would combat cyberbullying, especially among children. In July 2016, her 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".
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 okay 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 (2017–2021)
She assumed the role of first lady of the United States on January 20, 2017, continuing to live in Manhattan at the Trump Tower with their son, Barron, until the end of his 2016–2017 school year at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School. A 2020 biography by Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan revealed that Melania stayed in New York to negotiate more favorable terms in her prenuptial agreement from Trump for her and their son.
Of Trump's inauguration, Vogue compared Melania's wardrobe to those of Jacqueline Kennedy and Nancy Reagan, writing that Melania closely works with her stylist, designer Hervé Pierre, preferring "strongly tailored pieces" in bold colors and wearing almost exclusively high-end designers.
She and Barron moved into the White House in Washington, D.C., 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). She is the second foreign-born woman to hold the title of first lady, after Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, who was born in 1775 in London to a father from Maryland and an English mother. She is also the first naturalized citizen (rather than birthright citizen) to hold the title, and the first whose native language is not English. Though it has frequently been reported that Trump speaks up to five foreign languages fluently, evidence has shown that when speaking French or Italian, her speech has been limited to basic greetings.
According to an unauthorized biography, she was well-liked by her staffers, is cordial to Ivanka Trump, and is not close to Mike Pence's wife, Karen Pence.
On March 8, 2017, she hosted her first White House event, a luncheon for International Women's Day. She 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 January 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that during a three-month period when she lived in New York in 2017, she took Air Force jet flights between New York City, Florida, and Washington at a cost of more than US$675,000 to taxpayers. In comparison, former first lady Michelle Obama's solo travel cost an average of about US$350,000 per year.
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On March 13, 2018, Trump scheduled a March 20, 2018, meeting with policy executives from technology companies, including Amazon, Facebook, Google, Snap, and Twitter, to address online harassment and Internet safety, with a particular focus on how those issues affect children. Trump attended the roundtable event, focusing on how children are affected by modern technology. Trump said: "I am well aware that people are skeptical of me discussing this topic", but "that will not stop me from doing what I know is right".
Melania took an active role in planning the Trump administration's first state dinner on April 23, 2018, to honor French president Emmanuel Macron. With Brigitte Macron, the French president's wife, Trump visited a Paul Cézanne exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington the day before.
On June 17, 2018, Melania referred to the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy at the border with Mexico, where children were being separated from their parents. She stated that she "hates to see children separated from their families" and wants there to be "successful immigration reform". On June 21, 2018, she made a hastily planned trip to Texas to one of the locations at which the Trump Administration's family separation policy was being carried out. She attended a roundtable with doctors, medical staff, social workers and other experts at Upbring New Hope Children's Shelter.
In October 2018, Trump took a four-nation, solo tour of Africa, without her husband, focusing on conservation and children and families, visiting Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, and Egypt.
Melania ended her tenure by agreeing with Donald that he was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, despite his loss. She did not contact incoming first lady Jill Biden to make transition arrangements or provide her the traditional tour of the White House. Melania never felt comfortable in Washington, reported The New York Times, citing people who knew her.
Be Best campaign
On May 7, 2018, Trump formally started the Be Best public awareness campaign, which focused on well-being for youth and advocated against cyberbullying. The campaign was accompanied by a booklet that was promoted as having been written "By First Lady Melania Trump and the Federal Trade Commission [FTC]", but it was nearly identical to a document first published in 2014 by the FTC. The similarities prompted accusations of plagiarism, to which her office responded by admonishing the press for reporting on the issue. The fact-checking site Snopes found the charge of plagiarism "Mostly False" saying, "Melania Trump did not claim she had written the pamphlet herself, and she contributed an introduction to a slightly revised version of the booklet. The FTC was always credited for the creation of the booklet and supported its inclusion in the first lady's 'Be Best' campaign."
In December 2019, Be Best became a trending topic on Twitter, after Melania's husband Donald used Twitter to mock teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg. A week before the incident, Melania had criticized academic Pamela Karlan for making comments about Barron, stating that: "A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics".
Subsequent activities
After the Trumps left the White House, Melania returned to Mar-a-Lago, where she could live while avoiding public attention. She retained one White House advisor, Marcia Lee Kelly, to help her during the post-presidency. Melania kept in contact with her successor Jill Biden, and the two have exchanged birthday cards. Since her tenure as first lady ended, Melania has made occasional paid speaking appearances, she has founded a scholarship program for foster children, and she has minted a line of Apollo 11-themed non-fungible tokens that were not in compliance with NASA's image use policy. Melania has not accompanied her husband to his court appearances or events for his candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
Personal life
Melania and Trump became engaged in 2004. On January 22, 2005, they married in an Anglican service at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida, followed by a reception in the ballroom at her husband's Mar-a-Lago estate. The marriage was her first and his third.
Upon marrying Donald Trump, Melania became stepmother to his four children: Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump from his first marriage to Ivana Zelníčková, and Tiffany Trump from his second marriage to Marla Maples. Melania had especially bonded with Tiffany, who was six when Melania began dating Tiffany's father, and made sure she felt included among her step-siblings. When Melania herself became pregnant, it was widely covered in the media.
On March 20, 2006, Donald and Melania had a son, Barron William Trump. Melania chose her son's middle name, while Donald chose his first name. After Barron was born, Melania was active in his life and accordingly spent less time attending events with her husband. She avoided the use of nannies, with a few exceptions in Barron's earliest years, insisting on raising him herself.
Melania stayed out of the public spotlight after she settled into her life as a Trump, excepting occasional charity work and an appearance in an Aflac commercial. When she was with her husband, they watched films together, including their favorite films Gone with the Wind and Sunset Boulevard.
Interesting facts about Melania Trump
- Melania is the first naturalized citizen to become first lady and the second foreign-born first lady after Louisa Adams.
- During her husband's 2016 campaign, Trump was the least popular presidential candidate spouse in modern polling.
- Melania identifies as Catholic. She was the second Catholic first lady of the United States.
- Besides her American citizenship, both she and her son [[[Barron Trump|Barron]] maintain multiple citizenship in Slovenia.
- For her wedding, Melania wore a US$200,000 dress made by John Galliano of the house of Christian Dior.
Melania Trump quotes
- "I want our children in America to know the limits of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them."
- "Your word is your bond, and you do what you say and keep your promise."
- "Work hard for what you want in life."
- "We are responsible for empowering our next generation with values."
- "You judge a society by how it treats its citizens. We must do our best to ensure that every child can live in comfort and security, with the best possible education."
See also
In Spanish: Melania Trump para niños
