A First with no equal: Melania Trump has her place in history
Melania Trump set several “firsts” when she became the First Lady of the United States in 2016.
Originally hailing from what was the Yugoslav Republic of Slovenia, she is the first naturalised citizen to hold the title, and also the first whose native language is not English.
But Donald Trump’s wife is actually not the first foreignborn First Lady.
Melania is the second after Louisa Adams, wife of the sixth president, John Quincy Adams, who was born in London to a father from Maryland and an English mother.
Melania will however be the first of her husband’s three wives to still be married to him when she turns 50 this week.
Trump’s first wife, Ivana, was 42 when they were divorced, and Marla Maples was just 36.
Trump was in the process of divorcing the latter when he met Melania at a party in 1998.
Some of you might be tempted to think of cheeky chat-show host Mrs Merton’s question to Debbie McGee, “What first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?” but that would be beneath a family newspaper. Ahem.
Melania continued her modelling career while Trump campaigned for the 2000 Reform Party presidential nomination.
Asked what her role would be if he were to win, she replied: “I would be very traditional, like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy.”
To be fair, there is a parallel with the latter as Melania is the first Catholic First Lady since “Jackie O”.
Her role models shouldn’t come as a surprise as she worked as a fashion model in Paris and Milan before moving to the US, where she was associated with Trump Model Management and her work was more in the “glamour” mould.
In 2001 the then Melanija Knavs became a permanent resident of the United States.
She married Trump four years later, before obtaining
US citizenship. And, like many things to do with her husband, that’s surrounded in controversy.
She resided briefly on a visitor’s visa before obtaining a work visa, and in 2000 petitioned for a right to permanent residency under the EB-1 programme.
Now, this is a programme designed for people with “extraordinary abilities” and apparently only 2% of people within their recognised field would be expected to qualify.
But at the time a snide report in a leading American newspaper said that her “biggest job at the time was a spot in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated which featured her on a beach in a string bikini, hugging a sixfoot inflatable whale”.
That has to be a first for a First Lady, too.