Unauthorized look

A biography on Melania Trump is due this week.

Where the first lady, Melania Trump, is concerned, theories abound.

A member of the White House press corps focused on the first lady and the Trump family, CNN reporter Kate Bennett shares her theories in an unauthorized biography, “Free, Melania,” out this week.

Here are some of Bennett ’s revelations.

■ There are no coincidences when it comes to the first lady’s clothing, Bennett writes. First there was the pink pussy-bow blouse Melania Trump wore to an October 2016 debate after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which her husband bragged about grabbing women’s genitals. Then there was the white pantsuit at the 2018 State of the Union (Bennett writes, “I have a theory that when the Trumps are unhappy with each other, Melania wears menswear”).

No single item of clothing has inspired more discussion than the $39 army-green Zara parka Melania Trump wore on a June 2018 trip to the border with the words “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” printed on the back. Bennett’s take is that it was directed at the president ’s daughter, Ivanka. “I believed ... that the jacket was a facetious jab at Ivanka and her near-constant attempts to attach herself for positive administration talking points,” Bennett writes.

■ Relationship with Ivanka: “Cordial, not close,” is how it was described to Bennett, who writes that Ivanka’s international travel rankles her stepmother.

■ According to a trusted source, Bennett writes, “Melania’s medical issue was indeed not minor — and that an embolization of a growth of some sort, small or large, when attached to the kidney, as hers might have been, made for a dangerous and complicated procedure.”

■ At one point Bennett was sitting in the back section of a jet that Melania Trump and Karen Pence, Vice President Mike Pence’s wife, were also taking. From that vantage, Bennett remembers “watching someone who looked a lot like Karen Pence, moving from the section ahead of ours, ty pically where aide and advance teams sit, and head toward the back lavatory.” Pence’s place among aides meant either that the first lady had not invited Pence to her spacious private cabin at the front of the plane, or Pence didn’t accept an invitation.

■ While the president sleeps in the master bedroom on the second level of the White House residence, Melania Trump stays on the third f loor.

Yui Mok - WPA Pool / Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II and first lady Melania Trump attend a reception for NATO leaders hosted by the queen at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday in London, England. An unauthorized biography of the first lady, “Free, Melania,” is out this week.