The former first lady, Melania is a high-profile figure who has balanced her very public profile and private life to perfection. She is renowned around the world. On Monday, the model-turned-businesswoman celebrated her 51st birthday has carved out a niche few others in her position have.
During Barack’s time in office, Melania chose a different path and kept her personal life a secret.
We know she has one child – Barron, 15. We know she is married to Trump; she hails from Slovenia and is her husband’s third wife. Melania is smart enough to draw a fine line between nothing and everything out in public.
Indeed, speaking to ABC in 2018, Melania made no secret of her desire to keep her private life very much that, saying she had “the same group of friends I had before. And I always prefer quality over quantity … I stay in contact with them through the phone and text messages.”
An example of her family life is that nobody knows she has an older sister. Sources say that she is her great influencer and closest sister.
Melania wanted to wait until Barron’s school year had ended before making the move to Washington DC, but Ines living in New York is also supposed to have played a part.
In 2017, philanthropist and close friend of the sisters, Audrey Gruss, told the New York Post they “are very close.”
Biographer Kate Bennett told People magazine that Mrs. Trump “doesn’t necessarily have a significant circle of friends. We used to get sightings of Michelle Obama out with her girls when she was the first lady … But we’ve never had one of those with Melania Trump.”
Longtime friend Paolo Zampolli agrees with Bennett’s claim, telling People in 2018: “Melania is very strong, she has big family values. She is very close to her family, she knows exactly what she wants.”
“While Donald Trump will talk to dozens of people in a span of a few days, Melania Trump really doesn’t talk to a lot of people,” Bennett says. “She keeps her world small by design.”
Speaking with ABC News three years ago, the then-first lady said she had “the same group of friends I had before. And I always prefer quality over quantity … I stay in contact with them through the phone and text messages.”
“If you wanna have a friend in Washington,” Mrs. Trump said, “buy a dog,” she added.
Melania’s artist sister lives in Jared Kushner and Ivanka’s former $2million (£1.4m) apartment in a lavish Trump-owned block on the Upper East Side – just four blocks from Trump Tower.
They hardly capture pictures together, as we remember just a single picture pair at a fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2005 is the only evidence that they are in contact with each other.
Gruss, who was also at the event, said Ines was “as a lovely person, and extremely creative.”
These women also allegedly have a half-brother, Denis Cigelnjak, who has previously said he never met dad Viktor or his half-siblings.
Melania and Ines moved to Milan in the early 90s. Melania worked as a fashion model, while Ines unsuccessfully tried to become a fashion designer.
“She really wanted to be in fashion but didn’t know how to break in,” Paris-based photographer Ale de Basseville told the New York Post.
“Ines wasn’t like the other girls you would meet there, who behave like queens. She was really polite and very mellow.”
But this is where the known background of her elusive sister ends. And that, it seems, is exactly how they want to keep it, with Melania frequently refusing to talk about her in interviews.