Before she became the poised First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump lived a life wrapped in quiet mystery – one that includes a few carefully guarded romances. But few knew who they were. Until now.
Born Melanija Knavs in the tiny Slovenian town of Sevnica, Melania’s journey to global recognition is anything but ordinary. Long before her marriage to Donald Trump in 2005, she worked tirelessly to build a modeling career that took her from the streets of Ljubljana to Paris, Milan, and ultimately, New York City.
Melania meets Trump
Melania and the future president first crossed paths in 1998 at a Fashion Week party at the Kit Kat Club in Manhattan, hosted by Italian businessman Paolo Zampolli, who had signed her to his modeling agency, ID Model Management.
Despite Trump arriving at the party with a date, he was reportedly captivated by Melania and asked for her number.
But, according to her best friend Edit Molnar, the model was “turned off” by the real estate mogul and dating him was “absolutely out of the question.”
“Melania said, ‘He’s here with a woman. I am absolutely not giving him my number,’” Molnar told the New York Post about the conversation he had with his friend, who he described as a “homebody.” “She wouldn’t even consider it. Donald did all the work.”
‘Not a party girl’
Zampolli, who now serves as a U.S. Ambassador for Global Partnerships, added: “She never dated anyone in New York before Donald. She only went to movies by herself and to the gym.
“This is a woman who modeled for Camel cigarettes on a huge billboard in Times Square but stayed home all the time,” Zampolli said. “She was not a party girl.”
In January 2005, Melania married Donald in a lavish ceremony at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, and the couple welcomed their first child, Barron, the following year in 2006.
But before Donald, who were the men that caught Melania’s eye?
Alleged first love
One of the first men publicly linked to the former Sports Illustrated model is Peter Butoln, who claimed to be her teenage boyfriend during her school years in Slovenia.
“It was my first love. My first real love,” Butoln said in an interview with Inside Edition.
They reportedly met when Melania moved to Ljubljana at 17 to attend design school, Butoln shared, explaining that when he first saw her in the city center, he was instantly smitten.
“I saw her in a crowd of girls, and she was the most beautiful girl,” he said.
Their romance ended when he left for military service, and their final contact came in 1987, when Melania sent him a postcard that read: “I send you this postcard with nice warm regards from the seaside.”
However, a spokesperson for the FLOTUS later dismissed his claims, stating that Butoln was never her official boyfriend.
Last Slovenian romance
Another name tied to Melania’s past is Jure Zorcic, who met the now First Lady in 1991. According to Zorcic, he was riding his motorcycle when he spotted her walking and turned around to speak to her. “I had a moment and thought, ‘Wow, who is this girl? She is so beautiful,’” he recalled to ABC News.
“We met each other like in a movie,” said Zorcic. “I was on my motorbike, and she has been walking down a street. As I passed by her, I had a moment and thought, ‘Wow, who is this girl? She is so beautiful, I must turn back and follow her.’”
After sharing a coffee and a chat, Zorcic explained that the two dated for several months and vacationed with friends along the Croatian coast.
Years later, she left Slovenia to model in Milan and Paris.
“It was a bit of shock when I met her,” he told ABC. “She is very special, that’s the truth.”
In 2000, they unexpectedly bumped into each other in New York, and Melania greeted her former flame in English.
“I asked her: Did you forget that you are Slovenian?” he recalled. She told him she was living between New York and Florida and that “she would never go back to Slovenia.”
Of her eventual marriage to Donald, Zorcic mused: “I think her marriage to Trump was fate. Nobody believed 20 years ago that she would live at the top of the world, on Fifth Avenue in Trump Tower – even her!”
Slovenian roots to Fifth Avenue royalty
After meeting Trump in 1998, her life shifted from the quiet routines of modeling to the glare of the public spotlight.
While the billionaire real estate mogul was already a household name, Melania remained calm under the attention their relationship drew. In her early interviews, she didn’t shy away from expressing admiration for him – both as a partner and a potential leader.
“He would be a great president,” she said confidently in a 1999 interview with ABC News. “He’s very smart…He knows how to do a business. He would be a great leader.”
At the time, Trump was only toying with the idea of a presidential run, but Melania was already convinced of his potential, ready to prove she was more than “just his pretty possession.”
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