From an apartment block in Yugoslavia to Mar-a-Lago to the White House and beyond, Melania Trump has seen it all — and she's no stranger to tragedy, either.
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00:00From an apartment block in Yugoslavia to Mar-a-Lago to the White House and beyond, Melania Trump
00:06has seen it all, and she's no stranger to tragedy, either.
00:09Born in Yugoslavia in 1970, Melania Trump was raised in the small industrial town of
00:15Seneza.
00:16For the first 10 years of her life, Yugoslavia was under the rule of Josip Broz Tito, and
00:21Melania's father, Viktor Kunaus, was a devoted member of the League of Communists.
00:26Viktor was a traveling car salesman, while Melania's mother, Umalia Kunaus, also known
00:32as Malchi, worked in a state-owned textile factory.
00:35The family lived in a small, five-story apartment block, surrounded by factory smoke, where
00:40Melania dreamed of a better life.
00:42According to those who knew her, she couldn't wait to escape her life there and embrace
00:46her newfound freedom.
00:47Mary Jordan, author of The Art of Her Deal, told CBS News,
00:51"'She's a girl who grew up in a really small town and couldn't wait to get out.
00:55She told everyone that.
00:56I mean, everyone I talked to in Slovenia said, she couldn't wait to get out of this town.
01:00She wanted to be where the action is."
01:02When Melania married Donald Trump years later, he reportedly promised her that she would
01:06never have to return to her homeland.
01:09The Trump family has long been plagued by affair rumors, and Donald Trump is reported
01:13to be a serial philanderer.
01:14In his 2018 book Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff alleged that Donald cheated on Melania Trump
01:20multiple times.
01:21Though the White House claimed that Wolff was lying, further cheating allegations would
01:25soon plague the Trumps.
01:26That same year, adult film actor Stormy Daniels released a memoir, Full Disclosure, in which
01:31she detailed her alleged affair with Donald in 2006.
01:35Prior to the 2016 election, she had accepted $130,000 in hush money to keep the alleged
01:41tryst a secret.
01:43Donald allegedly falsified business records to cover up the payment.
01:47What is he?
01:48Uh, an egotistical lunatic at this point."
01:51He was also accused of having a 10-month-long extramarital relationship with former Playboy
01:56model Karen McDougal from 2006 to 2007.
02:00When the hush money case went to trial in 2024, it was alleged Donald had still been
02:04cheating with McDougal while Melania was pregnant with Barron Trump, though it was ruled that
02:09the prosecution was not permitted to mention this in court.
02:12Melania was said to be angry about the alleged affairs, but apparently soldiered on regardless.
02:17A source told People magazine,
02:18"...she is aware of who her husband is and keeps her life upbeat with her own family
02:22and a few close friends."
02:25Melania Trump has a close relationship with Barron Trump, but her pregnancy with her son
02:29came with a price.
02:30When Melania was pregnant with Barron, Donald Trump gave her an ultimatum — lose the baby
02:34weight in a week, or it's over.
02:36At the time, Donald told Howard Stern,
02:38You know Howard, she's got the kind of a body and makeup where, about one day after the
02:42baby, it's going to be the same as it was before.
02:45When Stern asked if the business magnate was serious about his ultimatum, he replied,
02:49"...I think I'll give her a week."
02:50Donald later claimed that he was joking and insisted he would love Melania no matter what,
02:55but according to insiders who spoke to Vanity Fair, he was deadly serious.
02:59One source said,
03:00"...she promised him that everything would go back to the way it was.
03:03There was no, how do you feel?
03:05No opening of doors, making sure she didn't fall, just, you wanted to have a baby."
03:09Likewise, former Trump supporter Andrea Pizer wrote in the New York Post that she had been
03:14disgusted after witnessing Donald body-shame his postpartum wife.
03:18As a young woman trying to get her big break in the modeling industry, Melania Trump posed
03:23nude for French magazine Max back in the mid-'90s.
03:26Two decades later, the New York Post obtained the photos and plastered them on its front
03:30page.
03:31Oh wow, she needs to cover up, doesn't she?"
03:36According to the book Fire & Fury, Melania was inconsolable over the leak.
03:40The Post was criticized over its salacious spread, with some suggesting that Melania
03:44had been unfairly deemed fair game for slut-shaming due to her contentious husband.
03:49Women's advocate Jennifer Siebel Newsom told Yahoo Style,
03:52"...a woman's value does not lie solely in her youth, beauty, and sexuality."
03:56The New York Post's recent cover story and imagery about Melania perpetuates this limiting
04:01sexist narrative.
04:03At the time, there were claims that Donald Trump may have leaked the photos as a distraction
04:07from his many ongoing scandals, but Melania reportedly balked at the idea.
04:12Feeling betrayed, she allegedly suspected that Roger Stone, Donald's former advisor,
04:17was the man behind the leak.
04:18Kate Bennett wrote in her book Free Melania!
04:21The Unauthorized Biography, this time, the idea that Trump would throw his naked wife
04:26under the bus, was almost so gross and salacious, and the photos so B-movie bad, the press ultimately
04:32spent very little time discussing them.
04:34Stone himself subsequently denied that he was in any way responsible for the leak.
04:39However you may feel about Donald Trump, it's safe to say that his young son hasn't been
04:43to blame for his innumerable controversies.
04:45"'Hey, you're pretty popular.
04:47He might be more popular than Don and Eric, and we gotta talk about this.
04:51Hey, Don, we gotta talk about this, huh?"
04:54Some dissenters disagreed, however, seeing Barron Trump as fair game for open criticism.
04:59In 2018, actor and counterculture icon Peter Fonda launched a brutal attack on Barron,
05:06then aged 12, in the wake of controversy over child migrant detention camps.
05:11He promptly deleted the offending tweet and later issued an apology.
05:14In response, Donald Trump Jr. unleashed his own personal attack on Fonda and, inexplicably,
05:20his sister Jane, for her opposition to the Vietnam War almost half a century earlier.
05:25Distraught over the attack on her son, Melania Trump contacted the Secret Service.
05:30Stephanie Grisham, Melania's communications director, said,
05:33"'The tweet is sick and irresponsible.'"
05:35Melania herself made a rare political intervention when she voiced her opposition to separating
05:40child migrants from their parents.
05:42Grisham said,
05:43"'She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that
05:47governs with heart.'"
05:482018 was a tough year for Melania Trump, who felt the public's ire after donning her infamous
05:54I Don't Care jacket before suffering mockery over her Be Best campaign.
05:58To add to her woes, she had to be hospitalized due to kidney problems.
06:02Melania underwent an embolization, a procedure that blocks blood vessels.
06:06It's not known why Melania had to undergo the procedure, but it may have been due to
06:10a tumor or an aneurysm.
06:12Medical expert Dr. Nathalie Azar told Today,
06:15The reason to do an embolization of the kidney is to actually cut off the blood supply of
06:19one of the arteries in the kidney.
06:21Experts we consulted say the most plausible explanations are,
06:241.
06:25There might have been a benign tumor in the kidney, and when it gets to a certain size,
06:28it can spontaneously bleed.
06:30Or there might have been a blood vessel abnormality like an aneurysm, which can also bleed.
06:34Melania was expected to remain at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for several
06:39days.
06:40Typically, embolization patients do not remain in hospital as long as Melania did.
06:44Speaking to USA Today, urologic surgeon Jamin Brombat speculated that the then-First Lady's
06:49longer hospital stay may have been due to her suffering from unpleasant side effects
06:54or the treatment of a particularly large tumor.
06:58Melania Trump's Eastern European lineage has been used by some critics as a means of humiliating
07:02her.
07:03In 2018, Jimmy Kimmel was criticized for mocking Melania's accent on his show, mimicking her
07:08pronunciation as she read a children's book.
07:11Kimmel, you realize what this means?
07:14You could be First Lady of the United States.
07:17Media publications later condemned Kimmel for the skit, with the Chicago Tribune arguing
07:21that attacks on Melania constituted attacks on all immigrants.
07:25Kimmel later apologized.
07:27In 2020, former New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald was furious when Melania unveiled
07:32the renovated White House Rose Garden, and made a series of ex-posts that were deemed
07:37xenophobic.
07:38In a since-deleted post, he wrote,
07:39"'It is a destruction of our history,' something no other First Lady would have had the gall
07:43to do.
07:44This is the first time I have been furious that FLOTUS is a foreigner.
07:47She has no right to wreck our history."
07:49He then called Melania trashy and evil, and said she needed to get out of the White House.
07:54Journalist Mehdi Hassan called out Eichenwald, tweeting,
07:57"'This is a horrible anti-immigrant take, Kurt, and you should delete it and apologize.'"
08:01Meanwhile, left-wing journalist Lori Penny wrote in The New Statesman that xenophobic
08:05dog whistles were being justified against the then-First Lady merely by virtue of her
08:10bullish husband.
08:11Though they like to project a veneer of an idealized couple, there are many signs that
08:15Donald and Melania Trump's marriage has long been on the rocks.
08:18In a 2017 Vanity Fair profile, insiders noted that Melania appears to take on the role of
08:24a dutiful and passive wife who allows her husband to steal the limelight.
08:28Her passivity apparently masks her deep unhappiness with Donald, who has grown more distant from
08:33his wife as the years pass.
08:35-"Mrs. Trump, if you can tell us, what was it like to vote for your husband today?"
08:38-"A very exciting day."
08:39-"Were you very proud?"
08:40-"Of course, very proud.
08:41Great day."
08:43When Donald made his first presidential bid, Melania was reportedly terrified at the prospect
08:48of her husband winning.
08:49An insider told Vanity Fair,
08:51"...she never wanted this, and never had any interest."
08:54That same year, sources spoke to Us Weekly claiming Melania was dissatisfied with life
08:58and feared leaving her apartment.
09:00An insider claimed,
09:01"...Melania is unhappy with how her life ended up.
09:04She is miserable."
09:05As Donald grows older, experts say he and Melania will face more hurdles, with Melania
09:09potentially experiencing greater loneliness and isolation.
09:13That's not to say that the couple has ever been particularly close, though.
09:16Biographer Mary Jordan told The Guardian,
09:18"...I don't know any couple that spends as much time apart."
09:21Though Jordan added that the Trumps' unusual dynamic seems to work, it's been claimed that
09:25the distant couple still engage in heated arguments.
09:28In 2019, witnesses told People magazine that Melania was visibly upset following an argument
09:34with Donald at Mar-a-Lago.
09:36Melania's rep denied the claims.
09:39Melania Trump was reportedly devastated when her beloved mother died in January 2024, aged
09:4578.
09:46Her cause of death was not disclosed.
09:48On Instagram, Melania shared a photo of her mother and penned a poignant tribute, which
09:52read,
09:53"...on behalf of my family, I would like to extend our deepest gratitude for the love
09:57and support that you have showered upon us throughout this journey of loss and grief.
10:01We will cherish the beautiful memories of my beloved mother and forever keep her light
10:05in our hearts."
10:06Attending her mother's funeral with her father, Victor, husband Donald Trump, and son Barron
10:11Trump, Melania looked distraught and close to tears.
10:14In her eulogy, she reflected on how her mother had inspired her to become a model through
10:18her love of fashion.
10:19"...she was not just a friend but a confidant, a ray of light in the darkest of days."
10:27From the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy to the attempted killing
10:31of Ronald Reagan, it seems that one unfortunate consequence of political success is the risk
10:36of being targeted by would-be assassins.
10:39Donald Trump is no exception, having suffered a bloody ear after dodging death during a
10:43televised rally in Pennsylvania.
10:45Appearing on Fox News, Donald revealed that a distraught Melania feared the worst following
10:50the shooting.
10:51"...she can't really even talk about it."
10:52"...traumatized."
10:53"...which is okay, because that means she likes me, or she loves me."
10:57Interestingly, Donald had said in 2019 that his wife wouldn't cry her eyes out if someone
11:01made an attempt on his life, finding the idea of her distress inconceivable.
11:05In the aftermath of the assassination attempt, Melania condemned the shooter and claimed
11:10that her husband had been dehumanized in the eyes of his enemies.
11:13In a statement, she said,
11:14"...when I watched that violent bullet strike my husband, Donald, I realized my life, and
11:19Barron's life, were on the brink of devastating change.
11:22A monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine attempted to wring
11:27out Donald's passion.
11:28The core facets of my husband's life, his human side, were buried below the political
11:33machine."