Melania Trump may have been the third, but she is the only woman who didn’t become one of Donald Trump’s ex-wives. That may be because she proved to be pretty skillful at strategizing from the get-go. Given that Donald is no stranger to cheating scandals, Melania certainly knew that he had no shortage of women in his life. She had to stand out if she were to become the next Mrs. Trump. From refusing to give him her phone number to acting indifferent about his celebrity status, Melania’s tricks proved to have been right on target.
But it wasn’t straightforward. It took Donald five and a half years to propose to Melania, showing he was in no rush to make her a Trump. While Donald first met Melania in September 1998, the then-businessman only asked the Slovenian model to marry him in April 2004. But it worked. Donald’s marriage to Melania went on to become his longest, as the two are set to celebrate their 20th anniversary in January 2025. In contrast, he was married to Ivana Trump for 13 years and to Marla Maples for five.
Even if Melania and Donald have a marriage built on convenience, as many have speculated, she still seems to have gotten what she wanted: to secure a prosperous future for her son, Barron, something she reportedly is still doing. While she may be employing different strategies to get what she wants now, she has shown she’s good at it for a long time.
Melania Trump reportedly learned what he liked from his books
Donald Trump was interested in Melania Trump, then Knauss, from the moment he laid eyes on her. But then again, he probably showed interest in plenty of young women. Melania knew she had to play her cards right. The first step was to refuse to give him her number. “If I give him my number, I’m just one of the women he calls,” she told GQ in 2016. So she asked for his number instead and then waited a full week to call him.
Melania’s feigned indifference wasn’t entirely a game. She claimed she genuinely didn’t care much about Donald’s celebrity status. “I’m not starstruck,” she said. “We had a great connection, we had great chemistry, but I was not starstruck.” She believes that set her apart from other women. “Maybe he noticed that,” she supposed. Melania’s techniques may sound risky to some, as playing hard to get doesn’t work on everyone. But she did her homework beforehand.
When Melania’s relationship with Donald started, he had recently released his 1997 book, “The Art of the Comeback.” Inadvertently or not, he gave her the tools to become the perfect girlfriend, including his preference for women who required little maintenance. “Melania certainly was that,” Mary Jordan wrote in her 2020 book, “The Art of Her Deal,” adding, “She also didn’t make herself too available to the man who had said that nothing was more attractive to him than something he couldn’t have.”
