First Lady Melania Trump

Melania Knauss Trump (born Melanija Knavs, April26, 1970) is a Slovenian and American former model who is married to U.S. President Donald Trump. Since 2025, Melania Trump has served as the first lady of the United States, a role she previously held from 2017 to 2021. She is the first naturalized citizen to become first lady, the second foreign-born first lady after Louisa Adams (wife of John Quincy Adams), the second Roman Catholic first lady after Jacqueline Kennedy (wife of John F. Kennedy), and the second first lady to serve two non-consecutive terms after Frances Cleveland (wife of Grover Cleveland).

Melanija Knavs was born in Yugoslavia, where she began working as a fashion model at the age of 16 while pursuing her education. She changed the spelling of her name to Melania Knauss and traveled to Paris and Milan to seek modeling work before meeting Paolo Zampolli; Zampolli hired her and sponsored her immigration to the United States in 1996. She worked as a model in Manhattan, where Zampolli introduced her to Donald Trump in 1998. She began dating Donald Trump shortly thereafter. Trump worked to get Melania more modeling jobs, and she supported him during his 2000 presidential campaign. Melania and Donald Trump married in 2005, and they had a son, Barron Trump, the following year. Melania started her own jewelry brand, Melania, in 2009.

After encouraging Donald to run for president in the 2016 presidential election, Melania only made rare campaign appearances, instead opting to help Donald with strategy. She received major press coverage during the campaign when erotic photos from her modeling years were uncovered and published, and again when a speech she gave at the 2016 Republican National Convention was found to be plagiarized from a similar speech by Michelle Obama. In the month leading up to the election, she defended her husband following the release of the ''Access Hollywood'' tape that mired his campaign in scandal.

Melania stayed in Manhattan for the first months of her tenure as first lady, allowing Barron to finish school there. She kept to minimal activity after moving into the White House and held fewer events than previous first ladies. Melania faced several challenges in 2018, including allegations of extramarital affairs by her husband, surgery for kidney disease, and a tour of Africa that was overshadowed by scrutiny of her wardrobe and personal conduct. During her tenure as first lady, Melania prioritized children's issues, launching the Be Best campaign to promote children's welfare and visiting many children's hospitals. She was also a close advisor to her husband, influencing his decisions to end the Trump administration's family separation policy and to ban fruit-flavored electronic cigarette cartridges. In the final months of her initial tenure as first lady, Melania endorsed her husband's false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. After leaving the White House in 2021, she largely stayed out of the public view before assuming the role of first lady again in 2025.

Early life and education

Melanija Knavs was born in Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia (which later became part of the nation of Slovenia) on April 26, 1970. Her father Viktor Knavs first worked as a chauffeur, and he eventually sold car parts for a state-owned vehicle manufacturer as he made connections with the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the national communist party. Her mother Amalija worked as a patternmaker at the children's clothing manufacturer Jutranjka in Sevnica. In Sevnica, the family lived in the state-run housing complex Naselje Heroja Maroka. She has an older sister, Ines, and an older half-brother from her father's previous relationship, Denis Cigelnjak, whom she reportedly has never met. Her father denied paternity of Denis, even after it was confirmed by a paternity test.

Although Melanija's father was a member of Yugoslavia's communist party, which espoused a policy of state atheism, he had his daughters secretly baptized as Roman Catholic, as was common. The family was well-off relative to most who lived in communist societies. They frequently went on vacations to other parts of Europe. Their apartment was atypically decorated with brightly colored walls.

As a child, Melanija, like other children of workers at the factory, participated in fashion shows that featured children's clothing. Textiles were Sevnica's primary industry. Students were excused from school to participate in the shows. From a young age, Melanija expressed an interest in fashion, and she began customizing and sewing her own clothes. She developed a skill for it by watching her mother work. Melanija did well in school, where she was appointed school treasurer.

When Melanija was a teenager, she moved to a two-story house in Sevnica with her family. From her youth in Slovenia, Melanija was influenced by the United States: she described the presidency of Ronald Reagan as the beginning of a new era in her own country and the debut of CNN International in 1985 gave her family access to American media. Of particular interest to Melanija was the new exposure to global fashion. At the age of fifteen, she began attending the Secondary School for Design and Photography in Ljubljana, making the long commute from her hometown to the capital and back each day by train. After her first year, she and Ines moved to the capital together in an apartment paid for by their father. After graduating at age nineteen, Melanija enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture and Civil and Geodetic Engineering at the University of Ljubljana to further study design, leaving after a few months without finishing her degree.

Early modeling career

European career

Melania was discovered by Slovenian fashion photographer Stane Jerko when she was sixteen, after modeling in a school-sponsored show. At the time, she had wanted to be a fashion designer rather than a model. Melania won a modeling contest with the Italian studio Cinecittà that entitled her to a movie role, but she rejected the prize after a producer sexually propositioned her. As her modeling career progressed, Melania took on an alternate spelling of her name, Melania Knauss. She traveled Europe to find modeling work. Except for a few close relatives, she did not maintain contact with anyone she knew in Slovenia. In 1992, Melania was named runner-up