The Times Magazine 11in the corridors of Vogue in 2003. Slovenian
model Melania Knauss, as she was then, was
something of a project for Wintour, according
to Winston Wolkoff. She was already dating
Trump and living with him at Trump Tower,
but, according to Winston Wolkoff, was a work
in progress, “an empty canvas for Donald to
create his ideal, iconic-looking beauty”. Talley
would take Melania to parties and fashion
shows, and, with Winston Wolkoff, to frequent
lunches at one of New York’s most fashionable
restaurants, Michael’s. (However, Melania was,
says Winston Wolkoff, always very much a
homebody. Even when being paraded around
town by Talley, she preferred to “sit around
the penthouse in her Trump bathrobe or to
march around with weights on her ankles,
pumping her pink dumbbells”.)
Winston Wolkoff and her husband
attended their 2005 wedding – with 400
others, including Prince Albert of Monaco,
Rudy Giuliani, Simon Cowell, P Diddy,
Heidi Klum, Arnold Schwarzenegger and
the Clintons, with Billy Joel serenading the
happy couple. Melania wore a $100,000 Dior
gown designed by John Galliano, with a
13ft train, which she also wore on the cover
of Vogue, photographed by Mario Testino.
“He [Donald] used Vogue to create a star- not just Melania, but himself as well. If his
bride was a Vogue cover model, it legitimised
him too. He created who he was marrying,”
Winston Wolkoff tells me.
“Melania and Donald have a transactional
marriage,” she continues. “She is just as
complicit. She’s his enabler and his biggest
cheerleader. I genuinely believe that they
are programmed the same way. Melania and
Donald are a perfect match.”
She and Melania, now Mrs Trump, settled
into a routine of monthly lunches at the
exclusive Mark Hotel or Cipriani. Melania
was, she says, a great lunch date. “I really liked
her. She listened to me unconditionally,” says
Winston Wolkoff. “I wear my heart on my
sleeve. I’m an emotional basket case. And she’s
completely the opposite – nothing penetrates
her. And she would give me great advice that
I respected.” For example, when Winston
Wolkoff complained about her husband playing
golf on a Saturday morning instead of spending
time with her, Melania told her, “ ‘Just let himdo what he’s going to do. Why get in a fight
about something that won’t change?’
“I envied her attitude, because I wished,
at times, that I didn’t let things bother me
so deeply,” says Winston Wolkoff. If she
commented that she was concerned about
Melania’s marriage, she says, her friend would
respond, “ ‘Don’t be. I know who I married.’ ”
The first time Melania’s brush-it-off
attitude truly horrified her friend was in early
October 2016, just a month before Trump’s
election. The now infamous Access Hollywood
tape of Trump’s boast about grabbing women
“by the pussy” had made headlines around the
world, and threatened to derail his election
campaign. Three days later, Winston Wolkoff
and Melania met for lunch at the Mark. Her
friend’s only worry, she says, was how it might
affect his chances in the election. “ ‘If it
weren’t for this, there would be no question,
he would win,’ ” she reports Melania saying.
Was she not angry, Winston Wolkoff asked, in
disbelief. “ ‘Nope! He is who he is,’ ” she claims
Melania replied. “ ‘I told him that if he ran for
president, he had to be ready for everything
to be opened up and exposed. His whole life.’ ”
Melania didn’t want or need anyone’s
sympathy, says Winston Wolkoff, including
that of her friend. “ ‘Don’t feel sorry for me!’ ”
was her refrain. “ ‘I’m fine.’ ” Or, “ ‘Liberal
media bashing. Nothing new.’ ”
She is said to have responded the same way
when, in January 2018, the news broke about
Stormy Daniels, the porn star with whom
Donald Trump reportedly had an affair while
Melania was pregnant with their son, Barron,
and who was allegedly paid $130,000 by
Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, to deny it.
After not responding to her friend’s “URGENT”
text on the subject all day, Wolkoff recounts
that Melania replied, “ ‘It’s just politics.’
“Melania just moves on,” she says. “It’s not
that it’s just not humiliating; it’s as if it doesn’t
register.” When they finally spoke on the phone
about the Stormy brouhaha, and Winston
Wolkoff’s doorbell rang with a clothing
delivery as they talked, Melania was, she says,
far more interested in the clothes that had just
arrived. “There’s a disconnect,” she says.
So how do Donald and Melania actually
get on? “There’s a bond,” she continues.
“He looks for her approval and she gives it
to him. After every rally or speech, as soon
as he’s done, he’ll call her to ask, ‘Baby, how
was it?’ ” Melania, she says, will always tell
him, adoringly, “ ‘You did a great job, baby.’ ”
Even, apparently, when she wasn’t even
watching. Winston Wolkoff recounts a night
when she and Melania were on the phone
“for hours” while Trump was “at some rally”.
Melania lost track of time and “didn’t watch
a minute of his speech”, only remembering
she was supposed to when the landline rang
with Donald, requiring her affirmation.AFTER THE ACCESS HOLLYWOOD TAPE
MELANIA JUST SAID, ‘HE IS WHO HE IS’
The Trumps and the Pences at the Freedom Inaugural Ball in 2017
With Anna Wintour at New York Fashion Week, 2014