Donald and Melania Trump had an atypical path to the White House, a relationship with breakups, reconciliations and old political ambitions. Their story begins in New York in the 90s and reaches Washington, two decades later.
Donald and Melania Trump PHOTO Shutterstock
Beyond the flood of stories that questioned the happiness of their marriage, Trump won the presidential election in 2016 and, almost 20 years after Melania Trump was first asked about the possibility of becoming the First Lady of the United States, the two moved into the White House, writes E!News.
“I love Washington. I love living here. And we've turned the White House into a home — for our son and my husband — and we love living here.”Melania told ABC News in October. “It is a great honor for us to serve our great nation.”
How the current Trump couple met
Donald Trump, still married but separated at the time, met Melania Knauss in September 1998 at a party organized at the famous Kit Kat Club in Manhattan by Paolo Zampolli, president of the ID Models agency. It was New York Fashion Week, and Melania, a 28-year-old model who moved from Slovenia to the US in 1996, was out with friends. Trump was on a date, but, as he would later recount, he was immediately drawn to his future wife — even if it wasn't love at first sight in the classic sense.
“I'm crazy. I was actually supposed to be dating someone else”Trump recalled in a 2005 interview with CNN's Larry King. “There was an amazing supermodel sitting next to Melania. I was supposed to meet that supermodel. They said, 'Look, that's her.' I said, 'Forget her. Who's the one on the left?' And there was Melania.”
Melania told Harper's Bazaar in 2016: “He wanted my number, but he was on a date, so obviously I didn't give it to him. I said, 'I'm not giving you my number; give me yours and I'll call you'. I wanted to see what kind of number he gave me – if it was an office number, what does that mean? I'm not doing business with you.”
Trump gave him four numbers – “the office, Mar-a-Lago, the house in New York, everything” – and she called him a few days later. (“If he'd just given me his office number, that would have shown he wasn't very serious”Melania would have told a friend, according to the New York Post. “That says a lot about how a man sees a woman and how he treats her.”)
Neither she nor the president drank alcohol, and many people who knew Melania at the time described her as the opposite of a party girl: more comfortable in one-on-one or small group discussions than in the spotlight, and very strict about rest and beauty sleep.
“He was unusual in going out; he never went to clubs or bars”Zampolli told the Post. “She didn't have anyone in New York before Donald. She went to the movies and the gym by herself.”
Towards the end of 1999, Melania famously posed nude (with strategic cover-ups) for the cover of British GQ magazine, in a feature titled “Sex at the top: Melania Knauss earns her air miles”published in the January 2000 issue.
At a lavish dinner at Mar-a-Lago just before Christmas, she told a Washington Post reporter: “I think America needs a new leader. That's good. That's a good idea. You need someone who, um, talks straight and doesn't—” and imitated someone swaying from side to side.
Speaking to the New York Times a few weeks later, already in the position of “potential first lady”Melania dealt with the uproar surrounding the spicy discussion (and the objectifying way Trump used to talk about women) with humor.
The two broke up for a short time
Shortly after New Year's 2000, the New York Post, Trump's favorite tabloid, reported that he and Melania had broken up and that she was “heartbroken”.
“She's a great girl, but Donald needs to be free for a while. He didn't want to be tied down.”a source close to Trump told the publication. “He decided to take a break.”
However, the twice-divorced father of four reportedly said it was “the hardest thing he's ever done.”
A friend states: “He was still reeling from his breakup with Marla and needed company. Then Melania came along—beautiful and available.”
An eventual reconciliation was possible, another source said, “but the odds were better at one of Trump's roulette tables.”
“In the beginning, she had some trust issues in him”photographer Matthew Atanian, Melania's former roommate when she first moved to New York, told GQ in 2016. “She was telling me that she didn't accept it, that he was back to his old ways. She kept her apartment so she could have her own space because of that.”
In mid-January 2000, Trump, alone again, was attending a party dedicated to the Miss USA pageant and told the New York Times: “Melania is an amazing woman, an extraordinary woman, a wonderful woman and we will miss her.”
Melania, always tight-lipped about her husband's alleged infidelities, told DuJour in 2016 that Trump's attempt to enter politics at the time was “partial” the reason for the breakup. “We were separated for a few months, not long. Then we reconciled”she said. “He was always thinking about [o candidatură la președinție]. But he loved what he did, his business. He didn't say “Now is the time”. He always had that in him.”
In 2001, Melania moved permanently with Donald into Trump Tower.
Donald and Melania were married on January 22, 2005, at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Palm Beach. The ceremony was followed by a reception at Mar-a-Lago, with approximately 350 guests, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Anna Wintour, Barbara Walters, Katie Couric, Heidi Klum, Simon Cowell, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Shaquille O'Neal, Kelly Ripa and Billy Joel, who also sang – as did Elton John, Paul Anka and Tony Bennett.
“I want to be clear”Melania told DuJour in 2016, “that in 1999, when they asked me what kind of first lady I'd be, they said I'd be a traditional one, kind of Jackie Kennedy or Betty Ford. But that was 1999. A lot has changed since then.”
