Melania Trump married a Trump and we're shocked she wants to be businesswoman?

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This was published 7 years ago

Melania Trump married a Trump and we're shocked she wants to be businesswoman?

By Jenna Clarke
Updated

Outraged that Melania Trump is upset she's unable to cash in on her "unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to make millions as first lady?

Don't be.

In 2000 Melania Trump mused that being first lady is something every woman aspires to be.

In 2000 Melania Trump mused that being first lady is something every woman aspires to be.Credit: Bloomberg

She is Donald Trump's wife and Ivanka Trump's step-mother. Business is in their blood. And lawsuits are their bloodsport.

Recent history tells us there is nothing The Don likes more than tweeting, golfing with Greg Norman and suing people or institutions.

Melania Trump on the cover of February's <i>Vanity Fair</i> Mexico.

Melania Trump on the cover of February's Vanity Fair Mexico.Credit: Vanity Fair Mexico

Meanwhile, Mrs Trump's backstory is a classic rags to riches to alt-right narrative.

Born Melanija Knavs in a small Slovenian town before later changing her name to further her modelling career as Melania Knauss, she left the former Yugoslavia at 18 after being scouted and appearing in a fashion spread shot by a local photographer. Then Milan, Paris, trips (and GQ photo shoots) on board Trump's private jet and their lavish Mar-a-Lago wedding followed.

The first lady is suing the Daily Mail for more than $150 million in damages over a now retracted article that claimed she once worked as an escort. The story, she feels, has limited her ability to one day branch out with apparel, accessories, jewellery, cosmetics, hair care and fragrance lines.

While new court documents tendered this week don't explicitly state that the "multi-year term" refers to her tenure as first lady, Mrs Trump's lawyers argue the article damages her chances of generating millions of dollars for her personal brand during a period of time in which she will be "one of the most photographed women in the world". Something she would have unlikely achieved during school drop off with 10-year-old Barron, even in Manhattan.

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Following the news that upmarket department store Nordstrom are ghosting the Ivanka Trump brand, Mrs Trump, or her lawyers, have invoked the age-old adage: When life hands you lemons, litigate. Or: If you can't beat 'em or be a brand ambassador, sue 'em.

Ethics pundits were shocked to learn of her ambitions considering the role of wife to the President has traditionally been one of public service. However, if his two other marriages are any indication, the role of Mrs Trump is "tycoon in training".

Ivana Trump was essential to the aspiring real estate mogul in the 1980s and worked as an interior design consultant on several projects including the family's compound and most famous asset, Trump Tower in New York. She also held executive positions on a number of other hotels in his portfolio before she won a $20 million divorce settlement as Trump was teetering on bankruptcy in the early 1990s. She then went on to publish a best-selling separation manual that encouraged divorcees to "take his wallet to the cleaners".

Mistress turned wife No.2, Marla Maples, was an aspiring actor and pageant queen who released a Jane Fonda-inspired work out video titled Journey to Fitness that "combines stretching, muscle shaping, and mental conditioning". She was offered about $2 million to pose for Playboy, something Trump encouraged, however she declined. Fast forward to January 2017 and reports began surfacing that Maples and her daughter, Tiffany Trump, were scouting for hair and make-up artists to tend to them for free for inauguration events in exchange for "exposure".

Since Trump decided to apply for the position of leader of the free world, his third wife Melania has remained tight-lipped about, well, anything, which has turned the 46-year-old former model and mother into a human projection screen.

The #FreeMelania meme is widely popular, gifs of her steely expression when her husband turns his back are more popular than cat videos on the internet and countless op-eds have been dedicated to her and what she'll do next. This is despite the fact that all she's publicly pledged so far is saying her husband "will win" at the Liberty Ball, that she'll tackle cyber bullying at some stage during her term and, way back in 2000, she mused that being first lady is something every woman aspires to be. "Why not?," she told GQ.

Former first ladies haven't helped with this pile on.

Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Jacqueline Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt were considered the Wonder Woman to their husband's Superman by using the East Wing as a vehicle to promote social causes and awareness of important issues like women's rights, education, childhood obesity and pill box hats.

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While eminent commentators such as The New York Times' Maureen Dowd were opining that Mrs Trump is shaking up the FLOTUS role by not "playing by the rules", it appears, in light of this new lawsuit, the subject was doing just that by sitting in the first family's gilded penthouse apartment in New York plotting her business empire instead of planning the White House's annual Easter Egg roll.

If the vote went the other way would Bill Clinton be planning elaborate White House events that DC insiders say "are among the heaviest tasks for first ladies"?

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