Before becoming the 45th first lady of the United States, Melania Trump was born as Melanija Knavs in Novo Mesto, Slovenia on April 26, 1970. Melania began modeling for commercial work at age 16, and signed onto a modeling agency in Milan, Italy when she was 18. Her big break came when she met the co-owner of Metropolitan Models, Paolo Zampolli, in 1995, a friend of Donald Trump’s. Zampolli offered to represent Melania in the United States, where the up-and-coming model eventually moved to in 1996. She met Donald Trump at a party that Zampolli threw in Sept. 1998, the same year that they started dating (they later married in 2005).
After her career as a model, Melania focused on philanthropy. She served as the Goodwill Ambassador for the American Red Cross for four years, beginning in 2005, and she was elected as the Chairwoman for the American Heart Association in 2010. As the first lady of the United States, Melania now focuses on her BE BEST campaign, which focuses on the “well-being” of children and the opioid abuse crisis, according to her page on the White House’s website.
