What was Melania Knauss's background and career before meeting Trump?
Executive summary
Melanija Knavs—known professionally as Melania Knauss and later Melania Trump—grew up in Sevnica, then part of Yugoslavia, left university after a year to pursue modeling, and built an international fashion career that took her from Slovenia to Milan, Paris and New York before she met Donald Trump in the late 1990s [1] [2] [3]. Reporting documents a trajectory from a working‑class Slovenian upbringing into commercial and editorial modeling, with continued debate and scrutiny later about the precise timing and legal status of her immigration to the United States [1] [4] [5].
1. Early life and education in Slovenia
Born Melanija Knavs in 1970 in Novo Mesto and raised in Sevnica, she was the daughter of a car dealer and a patternmaker and attended the Secondary School of Design and Photography in Ljubljana before enrolling at the University of Ljubljana, which she left after one year to pursue modeling [1] [6] [7]. Multiple biographical outlets describe this as a conventional pivot for someone who had early exposure to fashion through her mother’s sewing and local runway work, but some biographers have questioned specific claims about completion of studies—an area where sources disagree or note ambiguity [2] [6].
2. Breakthrough into European modeling
Her modeling career reportedly began to take shape in the late 1980s and early 1990s after being photographed in Ljubljana and winning placement in a Slovenian modeling contest that opened doors in Milan; around this time she adopted the Germanized professional name Melania Knauss and moved to Italy to work with agencies and photographers [2] [5]. Accounts from fashion profiles and industry retrospectives emphasize steady work in Milan and Paris and describe her as a commercial and editorial model who appeared in advertisements, magazine spreads and billboards—evidence of a successful, if not celebrity‑level, international career [7] [3] [5].
3. Move to the United States and industry connections
Her relocation to the United States in the mid‑1990s is linked to Paolo Zampolli, a modeling agent who represented her and, according to multiple accounts, sponsored her move to New York; she worked in Manhattan and continued modeling in the U.S. market [8] [5]. Reporting states she arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s and later obtained permanent residency through an EB‑1 petition—documents and public retellings have made the timing and the grounds of that application a subject of scrutiny and political interest during later years [4] [5].
4. Meeting Donald Trump and its career impact
Most mainstream biographies say she was introduced to Donald Trump by an industry contact at a Manhattan event during New York Fashion Week in 1998 and that their relationship coincided with her continuing, though gradually curtailed, modeling work; contemporaneous fashion reporting and later memoirs describe that Trump’s fame offered her new social access and occasional high‑profile appearances [8] [3] [5]. Sources differ on exact chronology and on whether the relationship began before their public meeting, and some journalists treating the couple’s early years flag how industry rumor and publicity shaped later narratives [8].
5. Public profile, business ventures and controversies before 2005
After moving to the U.S. she continued to appear on magazine covers and in campaigns and later launched branded products such as a jewelry line, though by the early 2000s she was taking fewer modeling jobs as social and romantic ties to Trump increased [5]. Her immigration history, including the EB‑1 green card and work authorization questions, became a focal point of scrutiny once Trump entered politics—reporting documents the factual timeline of residency and naturalization but also notes partisan debate over whether her case met the high standard for “extraordinary ability” classification [4] [5].
6. How sources frame her pre‑Trump narrative and what remains uncertain
Profiles from Britannica, Time, the White House Historical Association and others construct a consistent throughline—Slovenian upbringing, design studies, early discovery, European modeling, U.S. move and industry introductions that led to meeting Trump—but they sometimes rely on Melania’s own public statements or agency accounts that are not exhaustively documented, and independent biographers have contested or probed details about education and visa timelines [1] [7] [6]. Where sources diverge—especially on fine points of timing, the degree of industry prominence, and the legal specifics of her immigration—reporting either flags the dispute or lacks primary documents in the public record, so those issues remain the principal open questions in the pre‑Trump narrative [6] [4].