Melania Knauss-Trump (born Melanija Knavs, anglicized to Melania Knauss; April 26, 1970) is a supermodel from Slovenia and an American socialite, and is the current wife of the American real estate magnate Donald Trump, whom she married on January 22, 2005.

Biography

Knauss was born as the daughter of Slovene parents in Sevnica, Slovenia in 1970. Her notoriety was raised a few notches after appearing on the Howard Stern show with Trump. This led to a layout in British GQ magazine, including the cover shot in January 2000. She was considered a supermodel in many parts of Europe, although she did not achieve that level of fame in the United States.

As Knauss' relationship with Trump grew she continued to model, but also became involved with the social set of New York. Their relationship received increasing publicity after the launch of Trump's successful business-oriented reality television show, The Apprentice.

Trump and Knauss became engaged in 2004, and married on 22 January 2005 at Bethesda by the Sea Episcopal Church in Palm Beach, Florida, followed by a reception at Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate. Their wedding ceremony was widely covered by the media, with the fact that Knauss wore a $200,000 dress made by the house of Christian Dior frequently noted. The cake at the reception was a 50 pound orange Grand Marnier cake with a Grand Marnier buttercream filling, covered with 3,000 roses, constructed by the chef at Mar-A-Lago.

Recently, Knauss has appeared in a comic TV advertisement for Aflac insurance, in which she and the Aflac mascot, a duck, voiced by comedian Gilbert Gottfried, exchange personalities via a Frankenstein-like mad experiment. She has appeared as a guest host on The View.

On 27 September 2005, the Trumps announced that Melania was pregnant with Donald Trump's fifth child. On 20 March 2006 Knauss-Trump gave birth to a boy, whom the couple named Barron William Trump. Donald Trump made the announcement via phone on the Imus in the Morning show about 20 minutes after birth, stating that "everyone's perfect."