Melania Knauss Trump (born Melanija Knavs; April 26, 1970) is a Slovenian and American former model and the third wife of President Donald Trump. She has served as First Lady of the United States since 2025, a role she previously held from 2017 to 2021. She is the first naturalized citizen and the first non-native English speaker to become first lady; the second foreign-born first lady, after Louisa Adams; the second Roman Catholic first lady, after Jacqueline Kennedy; and the second first lady to hold the position nonconsecutively, after Frances Cleveland. Melanija Knavs was born in Yugoslavia, where she began working as a fashion model at the age of 16 while pursuing her education. She changed the spelling of her name to Melania Knauss and traveled to Paris and Milan to seek modeling work before meeting Paolo Zampolli; Zampolli hired her and sponsored her immigration to the United States in 1996. She worked as a model in Manhattan, where Zampolli introduced her to Donald Trump in 1998. She began dating Donald Trump shortly thereafter. Trump worked to get Melania more modeling jobs, and she supported him during his 2000 presidential campaign. Melania and Donald Trump married in 2005, and they had a son, Barron Trump, the following year. Melania started her own jewelry brand, Melania, in 2009. After encouraging Donald to run for president in the 2016 presidential election, Melania only made rare campaign appearances, instead opting to help Donald with strategy. She received major press coverage during the campaign when erotic photos from her modeling years were uncovered and published, and again when a speech she gave at the 2016 Republican National Convention was found to be plagiarized from a similar speech by Michelle Obama. In the month leading up to the election, she defended her husband following the release of the Access Hollywood tape that mired his campaign in scandal. Melania stayed in Manhattan for the first months of her tenure as first lady, to allow Barron to finish school there and to renegotiate her prenuptial agreement. She kept to minimal activity after moving into the White House and held fewer events than previous first ladies. Melania faced several challenges in 2018, including allegations of extramarital affairs committed by her husband, surgery for kidney disease, and a tour of Africa that was overshadowed by scrutiny of her wardrobe and personal conduct. During her tenure as first lady, Melania prioritized children's issues, launching the Be Best campaign to promote children's welfare and visiting many children's hospitals. She was also a close advisor to her husband, influencing his decisions to end the Trump administration's family separation policy and to ban fruit-flavored electronic cigarette cartridges. In the final months of her initial tenure as first lady, Melania endorsed her husband's false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. After leaving the White House in 2021, she largely stayed out of the public view before assuming the role of first lady again in 2025. Description above from the Wikipedia article Melania Trump, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Filmography

• 2026Melania — Self, Producer
• 2001Zoolander — Melania Knauss (uncredited)
• Untitled Melania Trump Docuseries — Self, Executive Producer

Appearances as themselves (54)

• 2026ASAP Rocky – The Assault in Stockholm — Self (archive footage)
• America Who Are You? — Self (archive footage)
• 2026Iran, Israel and the Bomb — Self (archive footage)
• 2026Trump's America: Power, Change, Resistance — Self (archive footage)
• 2025After the Ashes: Rebuilding from the LA Wildfires — Self (archive footage)
• 2025America at War — Self (archive footage)
• 2025Covid: an accelerator of populism? — Self (archive footage)
• 2025Die Elon-Musk-Story — Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
• The Donald Trump Show — Self (archive footage)
• 2025The TikTok-Army of the AfD — Self (archive footage)
• 2024It Musk Be Love: Trump & Elon — Self (archive footage)
• 2022A Pete Hegseth and Melania Trump Interview — Self
• 2022Melania — Self
• 2022We Feed People — Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
• 2021The Arc de Triomphe: A Nation's Passion — Self (archive footage)
• When Ruby Wax Met... — Self (archive footage)
• 2020American Deep State — Self
• 2020Donald Trump Is President and You're Not: A Portrait of Donald J. Trump — Self (archive footage)
• 2020Feels Good Man — Self (archive footage)
• First Ladies — Self (archive footage)
• 2020Frenemies: Putin and Trump — Self - D. Trump's Wife (archive footage)
• 2020Looking for Melania Trump — Self
• 2020Nicotine - A Drug with a Future — Self (archive footage)
• 2020The Accidental President — Self (archive footage)
• 2020The Choice 2020: Trump vs. Biden — Self (archive footage)
• 2020The Plot Against the President — Self (archive footage)
• 2020The Way I See It — Self (archive footage)
• 2019Margaret Atwood: A Word After a Word After a Word Is Power — Self (archive footage)
• 2018Fahrenheit 11/9 — Self (archive footage)
• 2018King Bibi — Self (archive footage)
• 2018Pope Francis: A Man of His Word — Self - First Lady (uncredited)
• 201795th Annual National Christmas Tree Lighting — Self
• 2017Get Me Roger Stone — Self (archive footage)
• 2017Ivanka Trump- America's Real First Lady? — Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
• Trump: An American Dream — Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
• 2016One Nation Under Trump — Self
• 2016President Trump: Can He Really Win? — Self (archive footage)
• Spotlight — Self (archive footage)
• 2015The Making of Trump — Self (archive footage)
• 2015Who Is Donald Trump? — Self (archive footage)
• 7.30 — Self (archive footage)
• 2010Donald Trump: All-American Billionaire — Self
• The Rachel Maddow Show — Self (archive footage)
• 2007Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens — Self
• The Celebrity Apprentice — Self
• Jimmy Kimmel Live! — Self (archive footage), Self - Former First Lady (archive footage)
• White House Christmas — Self
• Dispatches — Self (archive footage)
• Frontline — Self (archive footage)
• Entertainment Tonight — Self
• 20/20 — Self
• 60 Minutes — Self
• Miss USA — Self - Judge
• Panorama — Self (archive footage)