Melania Trump, wife of Republican front-runner Donald Trump, is a rare presence on both the campaign trail and in the press. But for a lengthy new profile in GQ, she talks about the real estate mogul, her childhood and her aspirations as first lady now that Donald is within striking distance of the Republican nomination.
“How does a shy ex-model make her way from Slovenia to, just maybe, the White House?” writer Julia Ioffe, who interviewed Trump for the profile, asks. “To Melania Trump—and to the people who know her back home—her journey to marrying The Donald is like a fairy tale, or a too-crazy-to-believe rom-com. It’s a story full of naked ambition, stunning beauty, a shockingly Trump-like dad, and even some family secrets.”
Here are five takeaways from the interview:
Melania Trump is committed to keeping her political views a secret.
Some have wondered about how Melania Trump feels about her husband’s polarizing positions on immigration, given that she only became an American in 2006. During the interview, Trump says her husband’s political stances are largely irrelevant to her.
“I chose not to go into politics and policy,” Trump told Ioffe. “Those policies are my husband’s job.”
She maintained in the interview that she will only share her opinions in the context of marital discussion. “Nobody knows and nobody will ever know,” she said. “Because that’s between me and my husband.”
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Melania plans to be a “traditional” first lady.
From her husband’s regular assertions that she would make an excellent first lady to his controversial choice to re-tweet an unflattering image of Heidi Cruz alongside a complimentary photo of her, the prospect of the former model becoming taking up residence in the White House has been repeatedly invoked during this election cycle.
However, Melania has not been specific about what she would do if she were to assume the FLOTUS role. She has thus far said she would draw inspiration from Jackie Kennedy and would be “traditional” in her duties. When asked what causes she would support, Trump told Ioffe that she was involved in multiple charities “involving children, involving many different diseases.”
Trump says she and her husband “know our roles” in marriage and parenting.
The former model rejects the idea of a nanny raising her son, and believes it should be the mother’s responsibility. “We know our roles,” Trump previously said to Parenting.com, about dividing labor with her husband. “I didn’t want him to change the diapers or put Barron to bed.”
Melania says she is not “nagging” or “needy” and that her husband is “very understanding” in return. “If I say, ‘I need an hour, I’m going to take a bath,’ or I’m having a massage, he doesn’t have nothing against it,” Melania said once. “He’s very supportive in that way.”
She has an affinity for jewelry design.
Trump has dipped a toe into the world of jewelry design, selling a line of gem-clad watches and other types of jewelry. She initially sketched the designs herself, drawing upon a talent for drawing that she developed as a child in Slovenia.
An old friend of Melania’s said that she “has a really good feeling” for art. Another acquaintance, who asked Ioffe not to be named, was less diplomatic about her overall assessment: “She’s smart for the things she’s interested in, like jewelry. She’s not stupid, she’s not a bimbo, but she’s not especially clever.”
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Melania made Trump wait for her call.
“I didn’t know much about Donald Trump,” she told Ioffe about their introduction. “I had my life, I had my world. I didn’t follow Donald Trump and what kind of life he had.”
When Donald asked for her phone number, she instead asked him for his contact information. “If I give him my number, I’m just one of the women he calls,” Melania said. “I wanted to see what his intention is,” she explains. “It tells you a lot from the man what kind of number he gives you. He gave me all of his numbers.”
Melania then waited a week before reaching out to him. “I’m not starstruck,” she told Ioffe. “We had a great connection, we had great chemistry, but I was not starstruck. And maybe he noticed that.”
Christina Coleburn