Melania Trump today appeared onstage alongside Donald Trump in a show of solidarity - after months of being conspicuously absent.
Former model Melania, 54, has been rarely seen in public since Trump's explosive exit from the White House back in 2021, prompting some to even create 'missing' posters of the First Lady at political events. Now, the wife of the new president-elect has made it clear she will be sticking by her divisive husband's side as he prepares to re-enter the Oval Office.
Showing affection towards Melania at his campaign watch party, held today (November 6) in Palm Beach, Trump said: "I want to thank my beautiful wife Melania, First Lady, who has the number one bestselling book in the country, can you believe it? She has done a great job and works very hard to help people."
While the pair are now showing a united front as they return to the forefront of politics, they have experienced some ups and downs along the way - including a brief separation.
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Getty Images)Trump, 78, reportedly met Melania Trump, née Knauss, while on a date with another woman at a party thrown at New York City's Kit Kat Club back in 1998, during Fashion Week. Far from being starstruck by the well-known businessman, who had recently separated from his second wife, Marla Maples, the Slovenian model initially refused to give him her number.
Not giving up, Trump 'sneakily' gave Melania his contact details while his actual date was in the bathroom, in the hopes of setting up a proper date of their own. Speaking with Harper's Bazaar back in 2016, Melania recalled: "He wanted my number, but he was with a date, so of course I didn't give it to him. I said, 'I am not giving you my number; you give me yours, and I will call you.' I wanted to see what kind of number he would give me—if it was a business number, what is this? I'm not doing business with you."
Melania went on to clarify that Donald had given her numbers for "the office, Mar-a-Lago, home in New York, everything". A first date followed at star-studded New York nightspot Moomba, where Melania says she was struck by 'amazing sense of vitality'. She told the publication that she remembered that night as if 'it was two months ago'.
However, their path to the altar didn't exactly run smoothly, and the couple briefly separated in the year 2000, the same year that Trump took his first step into Presidential politics, attempting to bag a nomination for the Reform Party. By the time he'd dropped out of the race, the couple were reportedly back on track.
In an interview with DuJour, Melania was asked whether the temporary split had anything to do with Trump becoming too focused on his political campaign. Melania replied: “That was part of it,” she clarified. “We were apart for a few months, not long. We got back together. He was always thinking about [a presidential run]. But he loved what he did, he had his business.”
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Getty Images)The couple finally said 'I do' on January 22, 2005, in a glittering ceremony attended by the likes of Heidi Klum, Elton John, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Trump's future presidential rival, Hilary Clinton, and her husband Bill. Melania is perceived by some to be quite a different sort of person to Trump's previous two wives, who were both regarded as strong-willed individuals.
Summing Melania up in an interview with Vanity Fair, Trump's friend and business associate Federico Pignatelli, reflected: "Ivana was an intelligent, entrepreneurial woman. Also a very strong-minded person and very feisty. While instead, Melania . . . really no fights."
Six months after their decadent wedding, Melania learned she was pregnant with their son Barron, now an 18-year-old college student towering above his father in recent photographs. In the same Vanity Fair article, a source claimed that Trump had agreed to have a baby with Melania on the condition that she 'got her body back' after giving birth.
Although Melania has shown support for her frequently controversial husband throughout his 2016 presidential bid, she has insisted that she doesn't always share his views. During a 2018 solo trip to Egypt, Melania told reporters: "I don't always agree [with] what he thinks, and I tell him that. I give him my honest opinion and honest advice." She added: "I have my own voice and my own opinions and it's very important for me that I express what I feel."
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AP)Speaking with TODAY back in September 2023, Trump was quizzed as to when Melania would be joining him on the campaign trail. Explaining that his wife was a 'private person', Trump replied: "Soon, yeah pretty soon, when it's appropriate, but pretty soon. Honestly, I like to keep her away from it. It's so nasty and so mean."
However, although Melania has a reputation for being shy, she recently declared that she was 'not anxious' about returning to Washington during a sit-down interview with Fox & Friends. She also defended her husband against comparisons made to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler at a recent rally held in Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden
Melania said: "It's terrible. He's not Hitler. And all of his supporters, they're standing behind him because they want to see (the) country successful. And we see what kind of support he has."
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