Say good-bye Michelle Obama and hello Melania Trump.
With the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, his third wife Melania becomes the first foreign-born first lady in two centuries.
Will she make over the private quarters of the White House with elaborate gold furnishings? Who knows? But here are other facts — some well-known, some not — about the stylish 46-year-old former supermodel who will be the hostess of state dinners and lead the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.
Where she’s from
The mom and jewelry designer was born on April 26, 1970 in Cold War-era Slovenia (then Yugoslavia) to a Communist party member father, who managed car dealerships for a state-owned vehicle manufacturer. Her mother made patterns for a textile factory.
She began modeling at age 16, and was spotted by a photographer as a 17-year-old, the Daily Mirror reported. His photos of her led to a contract with an Italian modeling agency. She also went to work in Paris, and graced catwalks and magazines, including Sports Illustrated.
She reportedly worked illegally when she first came to the United States
While she has staunchly defended Donald’s hardline stand on immigration, she was paid for 10 modeling jobs and earned around $20,000 before she was granted an H-1B work visa in October 1996, the Associated Press reported. She received her green card in 2001 and became a U.S. citizen in 2006.
During that time before she received her work visa she also posed nude and in sexually intimate scenes with another woman in New York City for a photographer for a French men’s magazine.
She met Donald Trump at a Manhattan club
Melania was 28 when she met Donald in 1998. He was actually still married to wife no. 2 Marla Maples at the time. Donald was at the Kit Kat Club with another woman but reportedly made a beeline to Melania and asked for her number. Because he was there with another woman, she refused to give it to him – but she got his.
Their wedding was fabulous — and Hillary and Bill were there
Melania wore a $125,000 dress John Galliano dress and a 12-carat, emerald-cut $1.5 million ring for her wedding to Donald in January 2005 in Palm Beach, Florida. They celebrated at a lavish reception at their Mar-a-Lago estate.
The reception was attended by notable figures like Heidi Klum, rapper P Diddy, Simon Cowell, and former President Bill Clinton and then-Senator Hillary Clinton.
“To marry a man like Donald, you need to know who you are,” she told Larry King. “You need to be very strong and smart.”
Donald reportedly has not been faithful
The Wall Street Journal reported that Donald allegedly had an affair in 2006 with Playboy Playmate of the Year Karen McDougal. The Trump-friendly National Enquirer paid $150,000 for an exclusive interview with McDougal but then decided to kill the story?
Their son has a similar name as Trump’s PR alter ego
Donald has four adult chidren — Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric and Tiffany – with wives no. 1 and 2. Donald and Melania’s son, Barron William Trump, was born in 2006.
There was a time when Donald’s celebrity was mostly centered around New York City. During the 1970s and 1980s, reporters who covered him remember getting calls from his Manhattan office that involved conversations with “John Miller” or “John Barron,” public relations representatives who sounded precisely like Trump himself, the Washington Post reported.
Master Barron, now 10, is said to like wearing a suit and tie, and Melanie’s nickname for him is “Mini-Donald.”
Melania was not an enthusiastic campaigner
Throughout the campaign, Melania has mostly kept a low profile, often leaving it to her stepdaughter Ivanka to play Trump’s female campaign surrogate.
When she makes a public appearance, she has tended to bring unwanted attention to herself or the campaign. Speaking on behalf of her husband at the Republican National Convention, she was caught plagiarizing lines for her speech from Michelle Obama’s at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Those nude photos again
The nude photos Melania shot in 1995 were somehow leaked to the New York Post in August. But people wondered who leaked them and why: to embarrass and shame Melania; to stir up Americans’ puritanical views about nudity, sexuality and the conduct of political spouses?
Donald certainly wasn’t upset about their publication:
“Melania was one of the most successful models and she did many photo shoots, including for covers and major magazines,” he told the Post. “This was a picture taken for a European magazine prior to my knowing Melania. In Europe, pictures like this are very fashionable and common.”
Her cause as first lady? Ending cyberbullying
Despite being married to probably the biggest cyberbully of them all, Melania said that as first lady she wants to dedicate herself to stopping cyberbullying and increasing civility.
“Our culture has become too mean and too rough, especially to children and teenagers,” Melania said at a rally in Berwyn, Pa. last week. “We have to find a better way to talk to each other, to disagree with each other, to respect each other.”
What she and Hillary have in common
According to a Gallup poll, Melania is the least popular presidential candidate spouse since — Hillary Clinton.
FiveThirtyEight, citing two national surveys, said Melania has just a 28 percent favorable rating compared to a 32 percent unfavorable rating. That was lower than Bill Clinton’s net favorability and it’s lower than the net favorability of every presidential nominee’s spouse in every final campaign poll that asked the question since 1988.
The most popular spouse was Barbara Bush, George H W Bush’s wife. Michelle Obama was also viewed fairly positively at about this stage of 2012.
