Wolkoff is brought in as an advisor, at Melania's suggestion, and it's clear her running of the Met Gala gives Wolkoff the kind of experience that no one else in Trumpworld even comes close to. Unlike Ivana, his first wife, who ran one of his Atlantic City casinos … Melania didn't pressure him for things to do."ĭavid Wolkoff and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff with the future first lady and president (BILLY FARRELL/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images) Patrick McMullanīut if this book is about Melania Trump it is also about Wolkoff – the “Me” in that title.Īlmost half of the book is about Wolkoff trying to plan the Trump inaugural, and dealing with a cast of characters who make the Keystone Kops look like a smooth-running organization. “Unlike Marla Maples, Melania didn't pressure him emotionally. “Melania told me the secret of her long marriage to him is that she is completely different than his other wives,” Wolkoff writes. Meanwhile, Wolkoff gives us surprising glimpses of the first lady: her steely determination, her refusal to be dictated to by anyone, particularly the White House staff ("Pleasing anyone else is not my priority") and her pragmatism about her marriage. Writes Roy: "Happy MT blocked IT!" (If the bizarre and much-noted look Melania gave Ivanka as they passed each other on the stage at the RNC on Thursday night is any indication, it appears relations have not improved over the past four years.) It's a screen shot of of the ceremony “with Melania's head completely blocking Ivanka's” (italics Wolkoff's). Over the course of those Vogue/Met Gala years, and over intimate lunches at places like the Mark and Michael's, Wolkoff became close to the former Melania Knauss, first when she was the Slovenian-born girlfriend and then fiancée of the New York real estate developer, then as the wife of the putative billionaire and reality TV star, and finally as the spouse of the newly elected president and the country's 42nd first lady, fighting against a White House staff and (as Wolkoff tells it) an ambitious stepdaughter eager to marginalize and sideline her.īut according to Wolkoff, another strategy was being employed: “Melania and I launched Operation Block Ivanka to keep her face out of that iconic ‘special moment,’" writes Wolkoff, adding, “To do this I needed to know exactly where the family would be seated, and the camera angles.” The “operation” was apparently a success: Minutes after the swearing in takes place, Wolkoff writes of getting a text from the designer Rachel Roy, a friend to both women. That book – “ Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship With the First Lady” – has been written by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former public relations manager at Vogue, and the first director of special events at the magazine, which included a decade of overseeing the Met Gala. ("I really don't care, do you" being perhaps the most infamous example.)īut this week comes a new book, written by a formerly close friend (with a definite emphasis on “formerly”), that offers perhaps the most revealing look we will ever have of this sphinx-like first lady. Trump has been among the least public of presidential spouses, severely restricting her official appearances and rarely giving interviews or speeches, seemingly content, at times, to let her fashion choices speak for her. Not since Pat Nixon has there been a first lady more inscrutable and less knowable than Melania Trump.
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