[4] She changed the spelling of her name to Melania Knauss, and she traveled to Paris and Milan to seek modeling work before meeting Paolo Zampolli, who hired her and sponsored her immigration to the United States in 1996.

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.

She was also a close advisor to her husband, influencing his decisions to end the Trump administration's family separation policy and ban fruit-flavored electronic cigarette cartridges.

[12] Although Melanija's father was a member of Yugoslavia's communist party, which espoused a policy of state atheism,[13] he had his daughters secretly baptized as Catholic, as was common.

[21] 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.

[19] 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.

[23] 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.

[12] 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.

[35] Zampolli encouraged Melania to live near and socialize with people in the fashion industry,[36] and he arranged for her to share an apartment with photographer Matthew Atanian in Zeckendorf Towers in Union Square.

[36] She received her first major job when she posed for a Camel cigarette ad shot by Ellen von Unwerth, which was displayed as a Times Square billboard and ran in Rolling Stone.

[59] The Trumps have stated that they met at the New York Fashion Week shortly after this conference, but according to biographer Mary Jordan, rumors in the industry suggested that their relationship had already developed by then.

[121][122] Her daily routine was nonetheless altered by the campaign, as she had to take security arrangements into account when she traveled, and she could not post about her activities online in real time.

[155] During this time, Melania negotiated new terms for her prenuptial agreement with Donald to reflect the changes in their lives since it was signed and to ensure that Barron received a suitable inheritance.

[154][161][162] As time went by, members of the administration's staff like her assistant, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, grew unhappy with Melania's absence, as it gave the impression of marital issues and prevented her from exercising a calming influence over the president.

As Melania was visiting as a Catholic, Pope Francis blessed her rosary beads, and she placed flowers at the feet of a statue of the Madonna at the Vatican's Bambino Gesù children's hospital.

[221] After several months of problems, Melania received positive coverage for a large custom-made white hat that she wore during a visit by French president Emmanuel Macron.

This revitalized accusations of hypocrisy by the Trumps regarding Melania's parents, as Donald had spoken out against the chain migration process that allowed them to enter the United States.

She used the trip to tout relief work being carried out by the United States Agency for International Development, which raised questions about her husband's intention to cut its funding.

[234] Melania paid close attention to media coverage throughout Donald's presidency, providing her input on what would make good optics and maintain his image.

[245] Leaked tapes in 2020 featured Melania making statements defending some of the practices, expressing grief about family separation but questioning the validity of asylum claims and dismissing concerns that children were kept in substandard conditions.

[248] She arrived at the border on June 21, where she visited the family separation facilities in Texas and attended a roundtable with doctors, medical staff, social workers, and other experts at Upbring New Hope Children's Shelter.

[251] On May 7, 2018, Melania held a press conference in the White House Rose Garden to announce her official public initiative as first lady, the Be Best awareness campaign.

[255] This received more attention in 2019 when the president made Twitter posts critical of Greta Thunberg, a teenage environmental activist diagnosed on the autism spectrum.

In the tapes, she condemned the media for not giving her positive coverage, questioned why people wanted her to speak out against her husband when she supported his policies, and expressed frustration with her responsibility to oversee Christmas decorations in the White House.

[246][260] The Justice Department filed a civil suit against Winston Wolkoff in October 2019, alleging breach of a nondisclosure agreement, but it was dropped in February 2021 under the Biden administration.

[261] In September 2022, Melania said in an interview with Breitbart News that the audiotapes had been strategically edited to make people believe that her duties in the White House had been unimportant to her.

[164] Her communications director Stephanie Grisham later stated she had sent Melania a text message asking her to make a statement condemning the violence and resigned when that did not happen.

[192] Since her first tenure as first lady ended, Melania made occasional paid speaking appearances, she founded a scholarship program for foster children, and she minted a line of Apollo 11–themed non-fungible tokens that were not in compliance with NASA's image use policy.

[264] Melania remained out of public view during her husband's court appearances and his candidacy in the 2024 presidential election, limiting her campaign events to two fundraisers for the Log Cabin Republicans.

[297] Her approval rating stood at 36 or 37% in the months leading up to becoming first lady in January 2017,[298][154] but it increased to 57% in a CNN poll in April 2018 after she received public sympathy amid allegations that her husband had committed adultery.