Melania Trump defends nude modeling career in latest video promoting new memoir
Former first lady describes her early work as a ‘celebration of the human form’ akin to classical paintings and sculptures
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Melania Trump has taken the media to task over its interest in her past nude modeling career in the latest video promoting her new memoir Melania.
“Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modelling work?” the former first lady and wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, 54, asks in the video posted on X and Instagram.
“The more pressing question is why has the media chosen to scrutinize my celebration of the human form in a fashion photo shoot?”
Cycling through some examples of nude figures from classical paintings and sculptures, including works by Cezanne and Michelangelo, she continues: “Are we no longer able to appreciate the beauty of the human body?
“Throughout history, master artists have revered the human shape, evoking profound emotions and admiration.
“We should honour our bodies and embrace the timeless tradition of using art as a powerful means of self expression.”
Originally from Novo Mesto, Slovenia, Melania Knavs began modeling aged 16 in Paris and Milan.
There, she met the businessman Paolo Zampolli, who first brought her to New York City in 1996 and introduced her to her future husband Donald Trump two years later.
Trump signed her to his agency Trump Model Management in 1999 while they were dating and, in 2000, she appeared nude in British GQ, posing aboard the luxury property tycoon’s private jet.
The pictures were taken by French photographer Antoine Verglas, who told ABC News during the 2016 presidential campaign that he had rejected offers worth “tens of thousands of dollars” to license his images to other magazines.
He said the model had insisted there be no “full nudity” in the pictures and remembered: “Melania was a very reserved person. She was definitely not someone who you would see in nightclubs or going out a lot. Pretty down to earth, very nice, very warm.”
Also during that campaign, The New York Post uncovered an earlier series of naked shots that Melania had posed for that ran in the January 1996 issue of French men’s magazine Max, which the tabloid re-published under the headlines “The Ogle Office” and “Menage a Trump.”
Jarl Ale Alexandre de Basseville, the photographer behind those pictures, told The Post: “I think it is important to show the beauty and the freedom of the woman, and I am very proud of these pictures because they celebrate Melania’s beauty.”
Trump himself said of his wife’s earlier work at the time: “Melania was one of the most successful models and she did many photo shoots, including for covers and major magazines.
“This was a picture taken for a European magazine prior to my knowing Melania. In Europe, pictures like this are very fashionable and common.”
Author Kate Bennett wrote in her 2019 biography Free, Melania that Melania herself refused to believe her husband had any role in leaking the images to the tabloid and instead suspected Republican operative Roger Stone.
The new video is the latest shared by Melania to plug her forthcoming hardback, which is currently available for pre-order via her website, retailing at $40 for a standard copy, $75 for a signed copy and $250 for a “Collector’s Edition”, which comes signed with additional photos and a “digital collectible.”
Other trailers have featured her attacking the FBI over its raid on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 in search of boxes of classified documents, remembering the birth of her son Barron Trump, denouncing alleged efforts to “silence” her husband and hinting at the prospect of a conspiracy at play in the first assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
She is yet to comment on the latest attempt on her husband’s life at his Florida golf course on Sunday.
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