Former First Lady and ex-model Melania Trump is currently prepping to drop her memoir on the world.
Titled simply Melania, it is touted as “an intimate portrait of a woman who has lived an extraordinary life,” containing previously unseen images and stories. As part of her roll-out, Melania’s been teasing snippets of the book in a series of clips on X: in one, she expounds on the “immense fulfillment” of motherhood, and in another, more bizarrely, she decries how her “privacy was invaded by the government.”
Her latest video post is even more unexpected. In it, she declares herself proud of her previous nude modeling work—linking it to depictions of nudity throughout art history.
“Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modeling work?” she asks in the 45-second video. “The more pressing question is: why has the media chosen to scrutinize my celebration of the human form in a fashion photo shoot?”
“Are we no longer able to appreciate the beauty of the human body?” Melania continues in earnest. “Throughout history, master artists have revered the human shape, evoking profound emotions and admiration.”
She concludes: “We should honor our bodies and embrace the timeless tradition of using art as a powerful means of self-expression.”
Melania Trump began her modeling career at age 16, while still living in her native Slovenia and attending the Secondary School for Design and Photography in Ljubljana. Her work took her around Europe before she landed in New York in 1996, where she met her future husband, Donald Trump, then a real estate developer (they wed in 2005).
She signed to Trump Model Management and in 1999, posed for a nude photo shoot for British GQ, lensed by French photographer Antoine Verglas, aboard the mogul’s private jet. In 2016, during Trump’s run for the U.S. presidency, Verglas remembered Melania as a “reserved” individual, who requested the magazine not run images with “full nudity.”
“There is nothing pornographic in an image like that,” Verglas added of the picture that landed on the cover of the January 2000 issue. “It’s a gorgeous image of her.”
Also during Trump’s campaign, the New York Post unearthed Melania’s earlier nude modeling work, some of which was published in a French magazine, Max, in 1996. Photographer Alé de Basseville, who shot the images, 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.”
Before now, Melania has never commented on her nude modeling jobs. But her husband has.
“Melania was one of the most successful models and she did many photo shoots, including for covers and major magazines,” Trump said in response to the Post‘s expose. “This was a picture taken for a European magazine prior to my knowing Melania. In Europe, pictures like this are very fashionable and common.”
