A crash course on Melania Trump
Melania Trump is not your typical first lady. Here's what you need to know about the third wife of President Donald Trump.
She was born Melanija Knavs on April 26, 1970 in a river town near Sevnica, Slovenia, which was then part of communist Yugoslavia.
She voted with her husband on Election Day
The Trumps voted at P.S. 59, an elementary school in Midtown Manhattan, on November 8, 2016.
A picture that appeared to show husband Donald sneaking a peek at his wife's ballot quickly went viral on social media.
She doesn't always agree with her husband
"I don't agree with everything that he says, but you know, that is normal. I'm my own person," Melania Trump told CNN in March 2016.
Specifically, she said she had told her husband that she didn't like some of the "inappropriate" language he used on social media and on the campaign trail.
Fighting bullying is a priority
In a speech in Pennsylvania, she said that combatting cyber-bullying would be a cause she would take up as first lady.
She has a half-brother
When GQ asked Trump about the existence of a half-brother, Denis Cigelnjak, she said she didn't know about him.
But when a reporter later gave her court documents proving that Melania's father had a son with a woman who wasn't Melania's mother, she told the magazine: "I've known about this for years."
She had lower poll ratings
In a Washington Post poll about campaign spouses that included Melania Trump, Bill Clinton and both vice presidential running mates' wives, Trump's favorability rating was the lowest, at 37 percent.
She didn't campaign much
After she was heavily criticized for plagiarizing part of a Michelle Obama speech during the GOP convention, Melania Trump didn't stump again until days before the election.
Her November speech, in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, was aimed at suburban women voters.
She's not Twitter-lific
Unlike her husband, Trump's tweets are few and far between these days. On March 27, 2016, she tweeted this photo with the caption, "Happy Easter!" Before that, her last post was "Happy Fourth of July" in the summer of 2015.
She averaged a few tweets a month starting in July, and on Election Day she took to Twitter to urge people to vote for her husband.
U.S. citizen
Melania Trump became a U.S. permanent resident in 2001 and a citizen in 2006. She would be the first presidential spouse to be born outside the United States since Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, who was born in England.
She's a former model
She began her modeling career at the age of 16, then signed with an agency in Milan when she was only 18. She took a break from full-time modeling to go to college for a year, then returned to the profession afterward. She moved to New York in 1996.
She's tall
Like a true model, Melania Trump is 5-foot-11. Interestingly enough, though, she would not be the tallest first lady. She'll have to share the top spot with Michelle Obama and Eleanor Roosevelt, who also both clocked in at 5-foot-11.
She's fluent in 5 languages
Though she may not have experience in public service, Melania Trump is prepped to help her husband out on the diplomatic front: in addition to her native Slovenian, Trump speaks four other languages: English, French, Serbian and German.
One child
She has one child and four stepchildren with Donald Trump. Her son, Barron, is fluent is Slovenian as well.
Fashion runs in her genes
Melania Trump's father was a car dealer and her mother was a fashion designer.
Cover girl
Over the years, she's appeared on the cover of various magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Ocean Drive, Avenue, InStyle and New York Magazine. Then, of course, there's also that now-famous 2000 cover shoot in which she posed nude for British GQ on a fur rug sporting handcuffs.
She does not have a college degree
Despite what her professional website and the 2016 RNC program read, Melania Trump did not in fact complete a degree in architecture and design at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, before becoming a skin care entrepreneur and philanthropist.
In July 2016, CBS News checked the official public records of the university, and discovered that Melania Trump is not listed as having graduated from there with a degree.
She has her own jewelry line
Melania Trump has her own jewelry line, called "Melania Timepieces & Fashion Jewelry," which she sells on QVC. When it launched on the home shopping network in February 2010, Donald was the first caller and Melania's products sold out in just 45 minutes.
And a skin care line
In March 2013, Melania added a skin care line to her resume, called "Melania™ Caviar Complexe C6.
One month later, she told The Daily Mail that her son Barron applies the caviar to his skin every night after his bath.
She's much younger than her husband
Donald Trump is 24 years Melania's senior.
She's appeared on TV too
Melania Trump has been in several television commercials — including one for the insurance company Aflac, in a spot along with the company's famous "Aflac" duck. She also co-hosted "The View" with Barbara Walters. And of course, she appeared on her husband's show, "The Apprentice," as well.
She's Trump's third wife
Melania and Donald Trump met in New York in 1998, two years after she moved to the city from Europe. He proposed in 2004 and the pair were married in January 2005, with a reception at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida (the site of his many primary-night press conferences).
She's the business mogul's third wife: he was married to his first, Czech-American model Ivana Trump, from 1977 to 1992, and his second, Marla Maples, from 1993 to 1999.
A first for the first lady
Melania is the first first lady to be born and raised in a communist country.
She's a homebody
In a 2005 interview with The New York Post, Paolo Zampolli, the president of ID Models recalled: "It was unusual for her to go out; she never went to clubs or bars... She never dated anyone in New York before Donald. She only went to movies by herself and to the gym.
"This is a woman who modeled for Camel cigarettes on a huge billboard in Times Square but stayed home all the time," Zampolli added. "She was not a party girl."
And her new home is the White House
After nearly five months of living apart, Melania and Barron moved into the White House with President Trump in June 2017.
Another first
Melania Trump is also the first first lady to have ever posed nude for a magazine. And that's a fact Ted Cruz's super PAC made sure Americans acknowledged, much to Donald Trump's disdain.
She's a philanthropist
Since marrying Donald Trump in 2005, Melania Trump has taken on various philanthropic causes both in New York and beyond.
She's been involved with the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Police Athletic League, the Boys Club of New York, The American Red Cross and Love Our Children USA.
She considers herself traditional
In 1999, when her then-boyfriend Donald Trump was considering a presidential bid, Melania told The New York Times, ''I would be very traditional. Like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy."
She changed her name while modeling
While modeling professionally in Italy, Melania changed her maiden name from Knavs to Knauss.
Pregnant photo shoot
In 2006, she posed for Vogue, seven months pregnant in a golden bikini. Annie Leibovitz shot the photos on the stairs of Donald Trump's private jet.
It wasn't love at first sight
Melania met Donald Trump at a fashion industry party at New York's Kit Kat Club in 1998. And in a 2005 interview, her close friend Edit Molnar told The New York Post that Melania was initially "turned off" by the fact that Donald Trump tried to get her phone number, despite having come to the party with another woman.
Instead, she reportedly got his number and called a few days later.
She's worked with mega photographers
During her modeling career, Melania worked with a number of hugely famous photographers, including Patrick Demarchelier, Helmut Newton and Mario Testino.
She signed a prenup
According to "The Fortune Hunters: Dazzling Women and the Men They Married," Donald Trump and Melania signed a prenuptial agreement before their wedding in 2005. "And the beautiful thing is that she agrees with it," Trump boasted to columnist Liz Smith over lunch at Le Cirque, according to the book.
She used to be chummy with Hillary
The Clintons attended Donald and Melania Trump's wedding. And in January 2013, Melania posted this throwback photo on Twitter with the caption, "#memories #mywedding."
The swimsuit issue
In yet another first for a first lady, Melania posed for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 2000.
