America's new first lady: Melania Trump

The public didn't hear much from Melania
Trump during the US presidential election
campaign. She remained mostly withdrawn and
loyal to her husband, but as a former model,
she was also an irresistable magnet for peoples'
gazes. But who is this woman - about to be
America's next first lady - in reality?

Rarely have Americans known so little about
their next first lady than they do about the
woman on Donald Trump's side, Melania. They
mostly know her as a former model - a 1.8-
metre-tall brunette beauty with the high
cheekbones. Melania, who is the third wife of a
multi-billionaire, is known for wearing stylish
clothing and being chauffeured around in
limousines.
But there is also the Melania who has remained
hidden, even in this most turbulent of all
presidential campaigns in modern US history.
One reason that relatively little is known about
the 46-year-old woman from Slovenia is that
she was little heard from during the campaign.
And the one time she stepped into the limelight
was a public relations disaster.
That was at the Republican Convention in July
when she read a speech in which entire
portions were taken, virtually verbatim, from a
speech that Michelle Obama, wife of President
Barack Obama, had once given. After that, little
was seen or heard from Melania again, rare
exceptions being seen on the sidelines during
the television debates between Trump and
Hillary Clinton.
She was forced at times to comment on the
headlines surrounding her husband, for
example the 2005 video that emerged in which
Trump had made obscenely sexist comments
about women. At the time of those comments,
Melania and Donald were married.
But Melania never showed the public if learning
about those remarks had hurt her personally.
She rarely shows her emotions, such as
unrestrained laughter or anger.
If she was critical of her husband, 24 years her
senior, during the campaign at all, then it was
done ever so quietly.
Loyalty is what Melania Trump showed the
most of during the campaign. It often came
across as robot-like, such as in the final week
of the campaign when she again held an
election speech - her first after the Republican
Party Convention disaster in July. Long
stretches of it simply repeated the slogans that
Donald Trump made, slogans such as "Let's make
America great again" and "This is not a normal
campaign. It is a movement."
But she rarely gave people a personal glimpse
of herself or any anecdotes about her husband
to put him in a better light. Asked how it is to
live with a man like Donald Trump, she would
answer "He is very smart and charming. We
have a tremendous energy between us." Or, "We
are both very independent ... I'll tell him when I
don't agree with him. Sometimes he listens to
me, sometimes not." Her remarks are polished,
elegant, but rarely spontaneous or funny.
Well-raised and reserved - these were
attributes that her former schoolmates
mentioned to the television news network CNN
when talking about Melania growing up in the
Slovenian city of Sevnica. She was born April
26, 1970 as Melanija Knavs in what was then
the communist country of Yugoslavia. She later
changed the name to Melania Knauss.
A photographer discovered her when she was
16 or 17 years old - nobody knows for certain.
Some things in her biography are fuzzy, or
even contradictory. She would claim later on
that she had a university degree. But journalists
discovered that she had broken off her studies
- architecture and design - in order to travel to
Milan and Paris.
In 1996 she came to New York, working with
well-known photographers and make the title
pages of such magazines as Harper's Bazar,
Vanity Fair, GQ and the annual swimsuit issue
of Sports Illustrated.
It was in 1998 at a Fashion Party in New York
that she met Donald Trump. In 2005 there was
a glamourous wedding in Palm Beach, Florida.
Media reports said her Dior dress had cost
$US100,000. In 2006 she gave birth to her
son Barron, and in the same year gained US
citizenship.
By her own account, Melania Trump says that
she has been a full-time mother to her son -
without any need for a nanny. During the
election campaign Donald Trump repeatedly
called his wife a "wonderful mother."
At the same time has her maternal duties,
Melania also offers beauty products and a
collection of jewellery via a home-shopping
channel.
She is said to be fluent in five languages,
whereby her English has a strong accent. With
Melania the Americans would be having their
first first lady to be born in a communist
country, and only the second, after Louisa
Adams (1775-1852, wife of the second US
President, John Adams) who was not born in
the USA.
Asked about what kind of role she could see
for herself in the White House, Melania said: "I
will be an advocate for women and children."
Among other aims would be to battle online
mobbing.
"Our culture has gotten too mean and too
violent," she said in her speech last week. The
remark was all the more astounding given that
during the campaign her husband was accused
of insulting entire ethnic and racial groups.
This points to the dilemma she finds herself in,
fairly or not. Melania Trump is being measured,
at least so far, by much of what her husband
does and says, because so little is known about
her.