Melania Trump has opened up about a surprising aspect of her marriage in her book: her husband’s “thoughtful” habit of checking on her health with her doctor.
The former first lady offers only fleeting glimpses of life at home with Donald Trump in her new memoir, Melania. The Daily Beast has seen a copy of the 184-page book, which will be published on Tuesday.
In the book, Melania describes her courtship with the 24-years-older billionaire, writes at length about their wedding, talks about their “chemistry,” and acknowledges that they have “political differences.”
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But she also emerges as a 2020 election denier as vehement and unrepentant as her husband, and only once uses the names of his other four children.
The most-eyebrow raising passage about their relationship comes in a paean of praise for him early in the book, disclosing that he calls her doctor regularly.
“As I got to know him better, I realized the public only saw a part of Donald Trump,” she writes. “In private he revealed himself as a gentleman, displaying tenderness and thoughtfulness.
The couple were together on election night 2020 in the White House. In her memoir, Melania reveals she remains an election denier like her husband.
Carlos Barria/Reuters“For example, Donald to this day calls my personal doctor to check in on my health, to ensure that I am okay and that they are taking perfect care of me. He isn’t flashy or dramatic, just genuine and caring.”
She does not name her personal physician.
Trump’s own personal physicians have included one who wrote that he could not be drafted during the Vietnam War because of bone spurs, the late Harold Bornstein who proclaimed that he would be “the healthiest president ever,” and White House physician Ronnie Jackson, who said he could “live to 200.” (Jackson, now a Republican congressman, gave up his right to practice all but emergency medicine and was stripped of his Navy rank of rear-admiral after retiring because he was found to have bullied subordinates.)
The calls to her doctor are one of the book’s few genuine insights into their relationship. It does describe their meet-cute in 1998—when she was 28 and he was 52—which she narrates over five pages of the 184-page memoir.
At the time, she says, she was living in a Manhattan apartment when a friend called on a Friday night to invite her to a party at the Kit Kat Klub. Despite her dislike of clubbing, she accepted because it was Fashion Week.
Melania claims that she made Trump hand over his number and that she did not think about their 24-year age difference when she first met the twice-married billionaire in 1998.
ReutersIn the “sophistication and camaraderie” of the VIP section, she writes, a man approached her and said, “Hi. I’m Donald Trump.”
“I recognized the name, and I knew he was a businessman or a celebrity, but not much else,” she writes. “‘Hello,’ I replied. ‘I’m Melania.’”
She notes he had a “beautiful date,” but at the same time, “I found myself drawn to his magnetic energy.” (The date has been widely named, including in the New York Post in 2005 by a friend of Melania, as Celina Mildefar, a Norwegian heiress who also dated Jeffrey Epstein.)
In her account in Melania, she says that she resisted giving Trump her number and instead he gave her his, summoning over his “bodyguard” to hand over a “sleek business card” to which he added two numbers. She only called him after a modeling trip to the Caribbean, she writes, but says, “the connection between us was palpable.”
Melania hints at tensions with her stepchildren, with whom she has rarely been photographed. In 2016, she was seen with (from left) Tiffany, Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric at an NBC candidate interview. She did not bring Barron to it, but Don Jr. brought daughter Kai and son Donnie.
Brendan McDermid/ReutersTheir first date was a tour of his property in Bedford, just north of New York City, which has long been controversial for the generous tax breaks he has used it to obtain. At one point earlier this year, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, was on the verge of seizing it from him.
Melania writes that Trump told her he was in the process of divorcing his second wife. “I refrained from passing any judgment, choosing instead to enjoy his company,” she writes, not naming Marla Maples, the mother of his daughter Tiffany.
“He was a bit older than me, but I, at the age of 28, felt an instant connection with him.” When she got home, she writes, she realized, “Our connection was undeniable, and our connection felt natural.”
She complains about being called a “gold-digger,” claiming, “I had earned my fortune and could easily have captured the attention of numerous celebrities if I had so desired,” and says that when she moved into Trump Tower, four or so years into their relationship, she enjoyed cooking for him. “Whenever he had music playing at home, he’d crank up the volume and pull me into a spontaneous dance.”
She also boasts about the “500 celebrity guests” at her Mar-a-Lago wedding; how Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor-in-chief, flew with her to Paris to select dress; the “global media coverage”; “our awaiting Maybach”; the list of who was there, among them, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Shaquille O’Neal, Barbara Walters, Gayle King, Matt Lauer, Anna Wintour and Kelly Ripa; and that the entertainment was by Tony Bennett, Paul Anka and Billy Joel.
The former first lady writes at length about her wedding at Mar-a-Lago, boasting about the number of celebrity guests, the weight of her dress and the size of the cake.
Gary I Rothstein/ReutersMelania describes “intricate dynamics” to dealing with his four older children, whose names she only uses once, and she hints at far greater tensions, writing, “While I do not agree with every opinion or choice expressed by Donald’s grown children, nor do I align with all of Donald’s decisions, I acknowledge that differing viewpoints are a natural aspect of human relationships.”
But one aspect of her husband’s decisions with which she is robustly aligned is his refusal to accept that he lost the 2020 election.
She describes the election night in the White House at length, complaining about Fox News calling Arizona for Joe Biden “before all the votes were counted,” then paradoxically bemoaning that the nationwide results would not be known for several days. “Many Americans still have doubts about the election to this day,” she writes—failing to directly acknowledge that it was her husband and his aides who created the doubts.
“I am not the only person who questions the results.”
