Melania Trump seems to be the very opposite of Donald Trump. Where he is loud, she is reserved. Where he is vocal and constantly in the public eye (even before he became the president and now the presidential nominee), Melania chooses to remain low-key.
What she thinks of her husband’s abrasive persona is anyone’s guess, but she has stood by his side and maintains a permanently aloof expression almost all the time.
She has also been described as a ghost by biographer Mary Jordan as it feels like she is famous yet no one knows her.
“A photographer said to me, “She was always in the news, one of the most recognized faces around the world, and I couldn’t find basic information about her. A photographer said to me, ‘She’s like a ghost. Everyone knows her but nobody does.’”
Yugoslavian roots
Melania was born in 1970 in Slovenia and raised in the small town of Sevnica. The family lived in a cold five-story apartment block where she could only dream of a better life.
Jordan said that according to her research from speaking to people in her hometown, she had told everyone that she couldn’t wait to get out of the small town.
Cheating husband
Once she married Donald Trump, it appeared that she could finally leave that life behind and would never have to go back to Slovenia. However, Melania Trump then had to deal with a cheating husband.
Donald Trump has been alleged to be a serial philanderer, and according to Michael Wolff in his book Fire and Fury, he had cheated on her multiple times, including when she was pregnant. In 2018, adult film star Stormy Daniels also released her book chronicling her affair with Donald Trump in 2006, for which she was paid hush money to keep quiet about later on.
Former fashion model fat-shamed by Donald Trump
When the former fashion model was pregnant with Barron Trump, Donald Trump apparently gave her an ultimatum: lose the baby weight in a week, or it’s over.
According to a Washington Post report, Donald told Howard Stern, “You know, Howard, she’s got the kind of a body and makeup where, about one day after the baby, it’s going to be the same as it was before.”
And when Stern asked him if he really meant to give her a one-day ultimatum at first, Donald had replied, “I think I’ll give her a week.
Nude pictures
As a young woman trying to get a break in the modelling world, Melania had also posed nude for French magazine Max in 1996 with the pictures coming back to haunt her when the New York Post plastered it on its front page, 20 years later.
The Post, however, was criticized for its actions, and many celebrities and famous personalities stood by her, saying that the media publication’s actions were in bad taste.
Son subjected to lewd remarks
In 2018, actor Peter Fonda launched an attack on the then 12-year-old Barron, subjecting the child to lewd remarks. He later deleted the offensive post on X and apologized.
Melania herself has been subjected to xenophobic comments. New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald called her a foreigner in 2020 over an issue related to the White House Rose Garden. He also said she was trashy and evil and needed to get out of the White House.
This year, Melania had bigger challenges with the death of her mother in January and the attempted assassination of her husband in July.
But it appears that Melania will continue to maintain a stoic presence in Donald Trump’s life as she stands by her man no matter what the cost. As both grow older, experts say she is bound to face more hurdles and greater loneliness and isolation.
Jordan said in an interview with The Guardian, “I don’t know any couple that spend as much time apart.”
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