By all appearances Melanija Knavs agreed to a devil’s bargain when she married Donald Trump in 2005, and in so doing became Melania Trump.
In exchange for the usual conjugal access and bearing Donald a son (Barron William Trump) as well as looking hot and serving as her husband’s ceremonial arm candy, Melania was rewarded with a life of immense luxury and wealth. All marriages are negotiated deals of one kind or another — you get this, I get that and we’ll have each other. The apparent difference when it comes to Donald and Melania is that neither seems to care about the “we’ll have each other” part.
The seeming hollowness of the Trump arrangement has been sketched out by Us magazine in a non-bylined 3.22 story, and if it feels semi-credible it’s because the portrait provided — that of a chilly, all-but-loveless marriage — confirms what most of us suspect anyway.
Quote #1: “Melania does not keep hidden from everyone around her how miserable she is.” Quote #2: “They have separate bedrooms…they never spend the night together…ever.” (Another source says they do sleep in the same room but keep separate beds.) Quote #3: “Melania wants as little to do with Donald as possible…she is not interested in Donald, the presidency or anything involving him.” Quote #4 from Melania rep: “It’s unfortunate that you are going to feature unnamed ‘sources’ that have provided fictional accounts.”
Key Wikipage anecdote: “In February 2017, Melania Trump sued Mail Media, the owner of The Daily Mail, seeking $150 million in damages over an August 2016 article which alleged that she had worked for an escort service during her modeling days. The Mail had already retracted the article and apologized. The lawsuit claimed the article had ruined her ‘unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’ to establish ‘multimillion dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which Plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world’. On 2.18 the lawsuit was amended, omitting the language about her earning potential and focusing instead on emotional distress.”
