A Glimpse Of Melania Trump’s Childhood In Slovenia
He continued: “I was on my motorbike, and she has been walking down a street. As I passed by her, I had a moment and thought, ‘Wow, who is this girl? She is so beautiful, I must turn back and follow her.'”
Zorcic stopped his motorbike, they started talking, and he took her for coffee, he recalled.
The couple dated for several months and spent summer days by the Croatian sea with a group of friends. Despite the brief time they spent together, Zorcic remembers Melania fondly. “It was a bit of shock when I met her,” he said. “She is very special, that’s the truth.”
Zorcic added: “I was impressed by her beauty from the very first moment. She was very nicely dressed, and her behavior was classy. She was tall, had long hair across her face — I could hardly see her eyes — such style!”
He said she was wearing a full leather outfit and described it as “the most fashionable piece” he had ever seen.
Zorcic was surprised when Melania suddenly left Slovenia. After a few years of living in Paris and Milan, the young model moved to New York City. “She told me she had an offer with a hair care company, for a campaign — that’s why she went,” he said.
Zorcic met Melania in New York in 2000 and described how surprised he was that his former sweetheart spoke to him in English rather then in Slovenian. “I asked her: did you forget that you are Slovenian?”
Who Has Melania Trump Modeled For
The first lady has worked with photographers such as Patrick Demarchelier and Helmut Newton.
She has appeared on the covers of Harpers Bazaar in Bulgaria and Vanity Fair in Italy.
One of her more infamous gigs is her nude shoot with GQ in 2000 which she said was nothing more than you see every year in Sports Illustrated.
She first met her future husband Donald Trump at a New York party at the Kit Kat Club during fashion week in 1998 and said she was not star-struck.
Trump, who at the time was a real estate mogul who had just done the first season of The Apprentice, proposed to Melania at the Met Gala in 2004.
The pair tied the knot in 2005 in Palm Beach, Florida, and Melania was 34 at the time. Trump was 58.
It has long been speculated that Melania does not like being married to her husband.
In November 2021, eagle-eyed fans noticed that Melania was filmed allegedly rolling her eyes at her husband during a World Series game.
The clip, which was caught as Atlanta Braves faced the Houston Astros, has been viewed over 4million times.
Trump Then Departs Palm Beach Early Misses New Years Eve Gala
Originally, Trump was reportedly expected to have stayed in Palm Beach through Jan. 3. But in a planning document sent ahead of his Dec. 23 arrival, the White House travel schedule had him leaving Palm Beach on New Years Day.
That changed rather abruptly when the president left aboard Air Force One just before noon on Dec. 31. A White House press corps reporter had broken the news of the early departure only the night before.
Why Trump decided to return earlier was not publicly revealed. He did not issue any tweets in his final hours at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Palm Beach.
What is clear is Trump missed the annual New Years Eve gala, a red carpet, swanky, big-ticket fetes, that is a tradition on the island like his annual Super Bowl party. It was the second time as president that he skipped the gala the first was in 2018 when he remained in Washington due to the government shutdown.
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Melania Trump Wins Damages From Daily Mail Over ‘escort’ Allegation
The UK’s Daily Mail newspaper has agreed to pay damages and costs to the first lady of the United States over an article about her modelling career.
The newspaper had reported allegations that Melania Trump once worked as an escort, but later retracted the claims.
The story was published during the US election campaign last year.
Mrs Trump accepted damages and an apology from the newspaper at London’s High Court.
The article was published by the Daily Mail newspaper, and subsequently the paper’s digital operation Mail Online.
In a statement, Mrs Trump’s lawyer said that she is “very pleased” and “will remain vigilant to protect her good name and reputation from those who make false and defamatory statements about her”.
Mrs Trump filed a lawsuit against the Daily Mail in the UK, and filed against Mail Online in the US.
The payout settles the case both in New York and the UK, despite London’s High Court having no jurisdiction in the US.
The US suit, filed last year, sought damages of $150m . The amount accepted by Mrs Trump in London was not disclosed in court.
However, reports suggest the payout was closer to $3m, including legal costs and damages.
In its apology, the Daily Mail acknowledged it had published “allegations that she provided services beyond simply modelling”.
The article also claimed that Mr and Mrs Trump may have met three years before they actually did, and later “staged” their first meeting.
Melania Trump’s Fashion Evolution: From Model To First Lady
That girl was Melania Knauss. The photographer invited her to his studio for a trial shoot. For their first photo session, Knauss brought her own wardrobe and Jerko said that her first photos were “very promising.”
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She returned for a second photo shoot, this time to model clothes from a Slovenian textile factory. The photos he took at those sessions made up her first portfolio and began her career as a professional model.
Jerko described Knauss as shy and reserved in the beginning but said that she quickly became comfortable in front of the camera. He also said that she was very eager to learn about the lighting, hair and makeup that went into each shoot.
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“The court believes most people, when they hear the words ‘high-end escort’ that describes a prostitute. There could be no more defamatory statement than to call a woman a prostitute,” Burrell said, reports Politico.
Before marrying Trump, then Melania Knauss worked in Europe and the United States as a model she has denied the escort claims.
Ivana Just Called Melania Trump A Grown Woman ‘a Nice Girl’
The feud between President Donald Trump’s first wife and his current wife has continued, even as Ivana Trump has insisted she has no problem with first lady Melania Trump.
Ahead of the release of her bookRaising Trump, Ivana Trump raised Melania’s hackles after she commented, “I’m basically first lady,” and in what seemed to be a conciliatory comment, referred to the actual first lady as a “nice girl.”
In what appeared to kick off the spat between the pair, Ivana told Good Morning America on Monday she avoided calling the White House because she didn’t want to speak to Melania.
“I really want to call him there because Melania is there. And I don’t want to cause any kind of jealousy or something like that because I’m basically first Trump wife. OK? I’m first lady,” Ivana said, prompting Melania to issue a statement slamming her husband’s first wife.
Melania suggested the comments from Ivana, who is the mother of the president’s three eldest children and grandmother to his nine grandchildren, were an attempt to promote her new book and described them as “attention seeking and self-serving noise.”
But now Ivana claims she does not want any bad blood between the pair, referring to the first lady as a “nice girl” as she made further comments on the relationship between the two.
Ivana also said she had contacted Melania after hearing reports that she had criticized the first lady’s accent.
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Will President Trump Concede His Election Loss To Joe Biden
“We were kids, everything was sweet at this time. We had a very nice childhood. It was a quiet atmosphere. We had almost everything we needed and more,” said Diana Kosar.
Melania was a mature and obedient girl who sewed the best dresses for dolls, following her mother’s example.
“She was good at everything that was creative. We didn’t draw the dresses, only sewed, but she drew them first. They were very good sketches,” she added.
Melania liked to take breaks from the noisy neighborhood kids, setting aside time for herself.
“She needed her space. She read or was thinking about things, and then she drew,” Kosar said.
Melania’s parents lived in a two-room apartment in Sevnica, a town of about 5,000 residents. They acquired the house through the housing plan of the now liquidated Jutranca textile company where they worked. After Melania was born they moved to a nearby building with an extra room.
Viktor, Melania’s father, was a member of the Communist Party. Several neighbors agree that he joined more out of convenience than conviction. That ensured fewer problems with the party after his daughter was baptized in a Catholic church, like many of the family’s relatives.
For some residents still living in the neighborhood, it was a surprise when they learned recently that Viktor had fathered another son out of wedlock whom he refused to acknowledge for years until a court forced him to pay child support after a paternity test.
An academic mystery
She l acked a “certain charm”
The Life And Secrets Of Melania Trump
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia One night in September 1998, Slovenian journalist Dusan Nograsek received a call that started what he still considers one of the strangest showbiz stories he has covered.
The call was from a modeling agency inviting him and four other reporters to meet a successful Slovenian model in Paris.
On a private plane, the reporters traveled from Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, all expenses paid to Paris and stayed at the luxurious Hotel Lutetia. After a long wait, the beautiful model appeared. She was presented as Melania Knauss. She asked that no photos be taken.
Nobody knew who she was. That told us her name, we wrote it down, recalls the reporter.
The meeting with journalists was a curious foretaste of the peculiar traits of the wife of Republican presidential candidate: surprises, secrets and contradictions.
A team from Univision Investiga traveled to Slovenia looking for details of Melania Trumps past.
Friends and acquaintances of the former model remember her as intelligent and introspective young woman who lacked charm and grew up in a modest family with strict parents believing her future lay elsewhere.
At the very least, beyond the borders of the tiny country of less than two million people that was struggling at the time under a socialism lite system, as some there recall the populist Yugoslav autocrat Marshal Yosip Tito.
Those who knew her described her repeatedly as ordinary. She was also called creative, reserved and sometimes immodest.
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Melania Sues Mail Online A Third Time For Claiming She Was An Escort
The suit says the First Lady had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known personto launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world.
These product categories would have included, among other things, apparel, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance, according to the filing.It places the value of the lost business opportunities at $150 million.
A spokeswoman for Mrs. Trump seemed to walk back the claims made in court papers.
The First Lady has no intention of using her position for profit and will not do so. Any statements to the contrary are being misinterpreted, the spokeswoman said.
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Ms. Trump also sued a Maryland blogger named Webster Griffin Tarpley, who made similar claims on his website.
The litigation triggered an interesting showdown over jurisdiction with a Maryland judge ultimately agreeing this case wasnt for her courtroom.
The case was then refiled, without Tarpley, in New York, and the case made more news with new pleadings that talked about lost business opportunities for Ms. Trump at a time when her husband was attempting to very lightly distance himself from a business empire for ethical reasons.
But the case wont last long.
The Daily Mail has now agreed to a retraction.
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Grisham Shares Why This Moment With The First Lady Broke Her
In a discussion with CNN earlier this summer, Grisham said she was shocked by Melanias response to her text, since shed previously gone to the first lady when political situations were escalating, and that the FLOTUS would either call her husband and talk him down from something or put out a statement well ahead of the West Wing to set a tone that this is not OK.
Knowing her as well as I did at that point, it was so unlike her to not have condemned it, said Grisham. That was the moment that it all kind of broke me.
Grisham explained that after she heard former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinsons testimony, she felt it was important for her to share the message, to add additional context.
Grisham resigned from the White House on January 6th after this text exchange, stating she was disappointed, discouraged, and sickened by the first ladys reluctance to condemn violence. In 2021, she released her memoir called Ill Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in the Trump White House, recounting her experience with the Trump family and her personal reckoning.
Reacting to Hutchinsons recent testimony about Trump throwing a plate at the wall, Grisham said, His temper was swift and it was scary. I was on the receiving end of it many, many times. I witnessed him throwing pens and papers. But, it rang completely true to me. I thought that she was a really credible witness.
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Ms. Trump also sued a Maryland blogger named Webster Griffin Tarpley, who made similar claims on his website.
The litigation triggered an interesting showdown over jurisdiction with a Maryland judge ultimately agreeing this case wasnt for her courtroom.
The case was then refiled, without Tarpley, in New York, and the case made more news with new pleadings that talked about lost business opportunities for Ms. Trump at a time when her husband was attempting to very lightly distance himself from a business empire for ethical reasons.
But the case wont last long.
The Daily Mail has now agreed to a retraction.
We accept that these allegations about Mrs Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them, the publications parent company said in the statement. We apologise to Mrs Trump for any distress that our publication caused her. To settle Mrs Trumps two lawsuits against us, we have agreed to pay her damages and costs.
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Slovenian Magazine Apologizes To Us First Lady Melania Trump
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia A Slovenian magazine apologized Friday to U.S. first lady Melania Trump for suggesting she had worked as a high-end escort while pursuing her international modeling career, and said it is paying her compensation.
Melania Trump had filed a libel lawsuit against the Suzy womens magazine. Her Slovenian lawyer, Natasa Pirc Musar, confirmed Friday an out-of-court settlement was reached, but disclosed no details.
The magazine said it published an article in August 2016 in which it said Trump in the past worked for a fashion agency that also offered an elite escort service besides modeling.
It said the article was understood as if Melania Trump conducted the escort job. We have no proof for that. So we apologize. We had no intention to hurt and offend Mrs. Trump.
Trumps lawyer claimed victory in the case.
The fact that the case is closed is a proof that even in the future Mrs. Trump will not allow insults and lies on her account and will always react to protect her rights and interests, Pirc Musar said.
Natasa Lusa, a member of the publishing board for the company that publishes the magazine, said the apology is part of a legal settlement that includes an undisclosed sum as compensation.
The 47-year-old first lady left her native Slovenia in her 20s and met Donald Trump at a Fashion Week party in New York in 1998.
Melania Trumps Fashion Evolution: From Model To First Lady
That girl was Melania Knauss. The photographer invited her to his studio for a trial shoot. For their first photo session, Knauss brought her own wardrobe and Jerko said that her first photos were very promising.
RELATED: Melania Trumps RNC speech dress sold out immediately
She returned for a second photo shoot, this time to model clothes from a Slovenian textile factory. The photos he took at those sessions made up her first portfolio and began her career as a professional model.
Jerko described Knauss as shy and reserved in the beginning but said that she quickly became comfortable in front of the camera. He also said that she was very eager to learn about the lighting, hair and makeup that went into each shoot.
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First Lady Of The United States
She assumed the role of first lady of the United States on January 20, 2017, continuing to live in Manhattan at the Trump Tower with their son, Barron, until the end of his 20162017 school year at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School. A 2020 biography by Washington Post reporter revealed that Melania stayed in New York to negotiate more favorable terms in her prenuptial agreement from Trump for her and their son.
Of Trump’s inauguration, Vogue compared Melania’s wardrobe to those of Jacqueline Kennedy and Nancy Reagan, writing that Melania closely works with her stylist, designer Hervé Pierre, preferring “strongly tailored pieces” in bold colors and wearing almost exclusively high-end designers.
She and Barron moved into the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 11, 2017. Her Secret Service code name is “Muse” . She is the second foreign-born woman to hold the title of first lady, after Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, who was born in 1775 in London to a father from Maryland and an English mother. She is also the first naturalized citizen to hold the title, and the first whose native language is not English. Though it has frequently been reported that Trump speaks up to five foreign languages fluently, evidence has shown that when speaking French or Italian, her speech has been limited to basic greetings.
According to an unauthorized biography, she was well-liked by her staffers, is cordial to Ivanka Trump, and is not close to Mike Pence‘s wife, Karen Pence.