So Who Is The Real Melania?

America’s first lady is revealed to be a whip-smart operator in an explosive new book that lifts the lid on the Trump marriage

- Sandy Cook

For years she’s been considered the silent, long-suffering sidekick to her in-your-face, over-the-top husband. But there’s a lot more going on behind the sphinx-like façade than many know, a new book reveals.

In The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story Of Melania Trump, Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist Mary Jordan paints a very different picture of the woman who’s inspired #FreeMelania memes – and the first lady clearly has more steel in her spine than she shows.

In the book, of which the title is a nod to US president Donald Trump’s own book The Art Of The Deal, America’s first lady is a force to be reckoned with: a protective mother, a formidable spouse, a proud woman who used the humiliation of her husband’s infidelities to leverage financial gain and someone whose views the president respects.

Jordan also gives intimate glimpses into the Trumps’ world. She interviewed more than 100 people for the book, which the White House has dismissed as fiction.

But Melania herself spoke to the author – and the insights from insiders are as telling as the fact that the first lady spoke at all.

THE ‘PRINCESS’ AND THE ‘PORTRAIT’

They’re the two most powerful women in the White House. On the one side is Trump’s third wife, Melania (50), mother of his youngest son, Barron (14), and on the other, daughter Ivanka (38), undoubtedly the favourite of his five kids.