US election: Melania Trump historic first lady of firsts

Melania lives at the top of Trump Tower in an apartment adorned with animal trophies - some shot by her stepchildren.

President-elect Donald Trump with wife Melania Trump.

We all know the Donald, but who is the lady that comes with the Trump? Melania Trump, 46, lives in a triplex — that’s the top three floors — of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York City, in an apartment adorned with animal trophies, some of them shot, skinned and mounted by her stepchildren.

One reporter granted a peek inside this penthouse describes the front door as “hulking”. It’s also gold. There’s a heavy marble table, and a marble fountain overlooking Central Park. When Melania moves from there to the White House in January, she will become the first immigrant first lady (yes, Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, was born in London, but her father was American; therefore she was not an immigrant) and also the first first lady to be a president's third wife (each has been younger than the last.)

She will not be the first model — Betty Ford was a model — but she’s the first to pose nude, handcuffed to a briefcase, and sprawled on a rug made from a dead bear.

Melania these days describes herself as a businesswoman. She has a line of face creams, infused with caviar. She speaks five languages (Slovenian, Serbian, French, German and heavily ­accented English) and, according to her husband, she never farts.

But let’s go back a bit. Melanija Knavs (she changed her name upon arrival in the States, for ease of pronunciation) was born in Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia, in April 1970. She grew up under communism, but her family got CNN when she was about 10 and she has previously said that “opened my eyes” to life beyond the Iron ­Curtain.

At age 18, she entered a local magazine's “Look of the Year” contest. She didn’t win but dropped out of university and began working as a model in Europe, before securing an H1-B visa, for specialist workers, to enter the US (there are some questions about whether Melania accepted work in the US before she had the right visa, which would have made her one of her husband’s betes noires, an illegal immigrant, but she insists that her paperwork was in order, and in any case, she’s now a citizen). She met Trump at a Fashion Week party at the Kit Kat Club in 1998. He was there with another woman, and Melania at first refused to hand over her phone number, but they soon got over that hiccup.

They were married at Donald’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2005. Among the guests? Bill and Hillary Clinton, who apparently didn’t bring a present, which was something Melania has never forgotten. She wore Christian Dior, and posed in the gown for GQ magazine, under the headline: “How to marry a billionaire”. The couple now have one son, born in March 2006, named Barron William. While only 10, he is often photographed wearing a suit and tie. He has a mini Mercedes that he drives around the triplex.

Melania played a provocative role in her husband’s campaign. She travelled to Iowa at one point, agreeing to stay in a motel, telling reporters: ‘It was clean. It was, I think, a Holiday Inn … They don’t have five-star hotels there, but you go with it.” After Trump’s lewd comments about women — “Grab ’em by the pussy” — became known, she turned up at the next debate wearing a hot pink pussy bow. She also spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention. The speech contained a paragraph that was nearly identical to a paragraph of Michelle Obama’s speech from 2008. Trump made light of it, saying: “When Michelle gives a speech, everyone loves it. My wife gives the exact same speech …” In 1999, she said that if her husband was elected to the White House she would play a “traditional role”.