Meet Melania Trump: smart, shy spouse of U.S. candidate
If husband were elected, she’d be first wife of president born abroad since 1825
Before she met Donald Trump at the Kit Kat Club in Manhattan and stepped into a glitzy world of limos and penthouses, diamonds and caviar, Melania Knauss lived quietly.
She grew up in one of the anonymous concrete apartment buildings of Yugoslavia when Josip Tito was its socialist leader and over-the-top capitalism, let alone full-blown Trumpism, didn’t exist.
“She never really wanted to stand out or be the centre of attention,” said Mirjana Jelancic, an elementary-school friend in the hilly town of Sevnica in what is now Slovenia. Then she married The Donald. The former high-fashion model started her own line of jewelry, marketed a $150-an-ounce moisturizer made with caviar and wore a $200,000 Dior gown at their splashy Palm Beach wedding a decade ago.
Now, Melania Trump, 45, who shies away from speaking in public, finds herself directly in the 2016 campaign spotlight, an unconventional spouse of a most unconventional presidential candidate.
She would be the only first lady born abroad since Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, who moved into the White House in 1825. She is Trump’s third wife — another first for a first lady. Ronald Reagan, with a single ex-wife when he took office, was the only other divorced U.S. president.
She might also be the most linguistically gifted first lady, as she speaks four languages including heavily accented English. And, without doubt, she would be the only first lady to have posed in the buff while lying on a fur blanket handcuffed to a leather briefcase, as she did aboard Trump’s jet for British GQ in 2000.
“She provides great balance” to Trump, said Roger Stone, the candidate’s former political adviser who has known the couple since before they were married. She is smart — “not just an armpiece,” Stone said. “She would be the most glamorous first lady since Jackie Kennedy.”
So far in the 2016 campaign season, Melania Trump has shown more of her homebody side than her provocative one. Friends said she prefers to stay at home with the couple’s 9year-old son, Barron. On the campaign trail, her 69-year-old husband has said that Melania is watching him on TV from home, always supportive.