Unveiling Melania Trump’s New Approach: What Makes This Time Different? And Why She Might Surprise Us More Than Her Husband

Underneath the stylish Eric Javits boater hat and her captivating portrayal of My Fair Lady at the first White House ball, she appeared both alluring and mysterious.

During a dance with her husband Donald Trump, Melania, 54, seemed indifferent to the new President as he leaned in close.

However, don’t be fooled. Despite her cool demeanor, Melania is planning a significant shift in how she approaches her role in the White House for the second time.

As Kate Andersen Brower, author and First Lady historian, says: ‘It’s going to be Melania 2.0 in the same way it’s Trump 2.0.

‘She’s going to be much more confident in the White House and in her role.’

And so, as Trump, 78, begins his second term with a bang, a tougher and more focused Melania is commencing what looks to be an extraordinary turn as FLOTUS.

Not least because she’s moving into the White House with a film crew in tow, something which would have been unthinkable for any of her predecessors.

Sphinx-like Melania, however, is set to reveal all with a documentary about her life.

The filming of interviews and general footage began last year in November during the closing stages of the campaign, when she was still at the Trump’s Florida base, Mar-a-Lago.

The film will be released later this year on Amazon Prime, whose boss Jeff Bezos was among the tech titans bending the knee to Trump this week. The streamer has stumped up an astonishing $40million for the rights to the movie.

Much of that sum is, reportedly, finding its way into Melania’s pockets, as she has a ‘producer’ credit. (Little wonder, perhaps, that Democratic political strategist James Carville, no doubt with a partisan axe to grind, referred to the purchase this week as ‘payola’ – meaning a corrupt payment in return for promotion.)

Why Slovenian-born Melania would want to kick off her second tenure as First Lady with such an obvious attempt to both burnish her public profile and enrich herself is an interesting question.

It’s even more interesting because the documentary follows hard on the heels of ‘Melania: A Memoir’ which came out in October. 

Critics said the book was ‘full of obfuscations’ and didn’t reveal much, but it was a number one New York Times bestseller, and one of the best-selling books of the year on Amazon, which will have earned her plenty of money.

This week she launched her own cryptocurrency. Now she and her husband each have their own.

Given these lucrative solo projects, observers have been wondering if Melania could be contemplating an end to her marriage when they leave the White House? Or does she just enjoy making money?

Ms Brower thinks it’s simply down to the latter and said: ‘You get no pay as First Lady. There’s nothing in the constitution that describes her role.

‘Michelle Obama gave up her job and wasn’t making money. It’s been seen historically as tacky.

‘In a way, by monetising that position it diminishes it.

‘But Melania has ‘Trumpified’ the role of First Lady. There’s a level of greed we haven’t seen before. 

She’s recreating the role. We see it in her fashion choices, her cryptocurrency, her book. She’s more public than she was but she’s going to do it on her terms.’

Ms Brower spoke about how Melania has a vested interest in ‘White House history’ and how she is ‘very much in touch with the White House Historical Association and a huge fan of Jackie Kennedy’.

She added: ‘It’s not as if she doesn’t understand the role, but I believe she’s taken the view that she doesn’t need to make everyone happy.

‘There’s a feeling that if anyone’s going to make money from her name, it’s going to be her…

‘There’s a feeling they [the Trumps] go after people that are making a penny by writing about them [like former aides Stephanie Winston Wolkoff and Stephanie Grisham] because all of that money should be theirs.’

Ms Wolkoff produced a book, Melania and Me in 2020, which was full of quotes directly from Melania as she had secretly recorded their conversations.

She was hit with a civil suit for breaking a non-disclosure agreement, which was eventually dropped in 2021. 

As for Ms Grisham, she was Melania’s Chief of Staff but turned on her boss after the Capitol riots in 2021. 

She testified that she asked Melania in a text if she could ‘at least tweet that ‘While peaceful protest is the right of every American, there’s no place for lawlessness or violence.’ 

Melania gave a one-word response, ‘No.’

As that single word indicates, the First Lady is as steely as her husband. But unlike her first time as FLOTUS, when Melania was seen as a chilly presence at her husband’s side at public events, Ms Brower thinks Melania now realises the importance of shows of unity.

‘I think we see them being more affectionate.

‘We’ll see her standing by him because of the trauma of the assassination attempts. That has really rocked her world, as it would for anyone, and it made her affirm her commitment to him.

‘First time around we saw her swatting her husband’s hand away. I predict more PDA from the White House, whether people like it or not.’

Indeed, during this term, Melania has already said she’ll be moving fully into the White House having made waves staying away from her husband last time.

Previously, she remained in New York while son Barron, now 18, was in school – quite a statement of her priorities, as even Michelle Obama moved her two young daughters to Washington halfway through their school year when her husband was elected President.

But Melania stood her ground, insisting Barron’s education should not be disrupted, despite the reported costs in flights and security being $125,000 a day. He is now at university.

Her wilfulness continues to burn strongly, however, as Melania told Fox News last week: ‘The first time… I just feel that people didn’t accept me, maybe. 

Some people, they see me as just the wife of the president, but I’m standing on my own two feet, independent. I have my own thoughts.’

This single-mindedness was further developed, says Mary Jordan – an associate editor at the Washington Post who wrote a biography of Melania called

The Art of Her Deal – in the embattled final period of her tenure as First Lady.

‘People close to Trump’s world tell me that part of it is the bunker mentality, that she, her son and her husband have come under intense criticism,’ says

Ms Jordan. ‘He was impeached, twice, and she was upset about that.

‘There were embarrassing [criminal] trials, especially to her. She feels that this criticism of him really has brought them closer.’

And it’s from her husband that she has learnt the most about how to survive as a Trump, and how to protect her own interests.

As Ms Jordan puts it: ‘She has a ringside seat to how he negotiates and if you read his books, when you have leverage [that’s] when you move in. When he entered politics all of a sudden she had new leverage.

‘She saw her moment and if he wanted her to go to Washington, to do something that she did not sign up for, they needed to renegotiate the prenup.

‘I talked to a lawyer who did one of his prenups – not the Melania one, but for Marla Maples, his second wife – and it was incredible how little she got.

‘Melania – I didn’t get specifics – wanted a more equal share for Barron. I think she’s very smart and a good negotiator.’    

There’s no denying, that for all this apparent wiliness, Melania’s first entry to the East Wing – where the office of the First Lady is located – was naive and ill-prepared.

‘In 2017, she was in the midst of a big feud with [her stepdaughter] Ivanka who took some of the [roles of] the First Lady,’ says

Ms Jordan. ‘This time she will be wiser and have better people around her.

‘Hopefully people that won’t let her wear jackets with rude things on the back [referring to the infamous jacket Melania wore to a migrant child detention centre with ‘I don’t care’ emblazoned it].’ 

Perhaps it’s the memory of this bruising experience that led to Melania enlisting Goldman Sachs bigwig John F.W. Rogers not long after her husband’s re-election to advise her on hiring new staff.

Mr Rogers is a real fixture in the city’s society circles, and with insiders like this behind her, it’s clear Melania means business this time around.

Speaking about Melania’s union with Trump, Ms Jordan says: ‘It’s unlike any political marriage I’ve ever seen. All couples are different but the amount of time they spend apart is extraordinary.

I know she deeply admires what he’s done and is appreciative for all he’s done for her. She came from a former Communist country with not much and he knows she makes him look good.’

Her modelling career, apparently, has influenced her approach to politics, says Ms Jordan: ‘She’s a perfectionist – she has to have every detail crossed and in politics there is no perfection.

‘That’s why it’s hard to be out there in the rough and tumble of politics.’

One wonders, then, how she will cope with the exposure of an up-close and personal documentary. The idea, Melania claims, was hers alone.

But why did Melania ask controversial director Brett Ratner to oversee it? Mr Ratner, of the Rush Hour and X Men movies, apparently met Melania via Marc Beckman, the United Agency CEO, who has acted as the First Lady’s representative, overseeing her book deal.

Mr Beckman facilitated a meeting between the pair at Mar-a-Lago, after Melania indicated she liked Mr Ratner’s films. 

She was also, seemingly, well aware that Mr Ratner had been accused of tawdry sexual misbehaviour by female stars, which were published by the Los Angeles Times in 2017.

His accusers included actress Natasha Henstridge, who claimed he once forced her to give him oral sex, and X Men’s Olivia Munn, who accused him of masturbating in front of her, when she was an aspiring actress. 

‘He walked out,’ she said, ‘with his belly sticking out, no pants on, shrimp cocktail in one hand and he was furiously masturbating in the other.’

Ms Munn said she let out a ‘startled scream’ and raced out of the trailer. ‘It wasn’t a shock. It wasn’t a surprise,’ Ms Munn recalled. ‘It was just, ‘Ugh, sorry about that.’

Mr Ratner – who has been romantically linked to Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan – denied the claims, which do not appear to have been pursued legally, but was promptly cancelled by Hollywood.

At the time of the allegations, his attorney Martin Singer said Mr Ratner ‘categorically’ disputed the actresses’ accounts.

He said: ‘I have represented Mr Ratner for two decades, and no woman has ever made a claim against him for sexual misconduct or sexual harassment.’

His Melania documentary will be his first project since the accusations were made public in 2017.

His reputation, then, to put it mildly, is tainted. One wonders why Melania – having endured her husband’s ‘grab ’em by the p***y’ comments – would invite links with such a man.

Apparently, Hollywood sources say, she liked the fact that he’d been ‘cast aside’ by the industry.

To Ms Jordan, this contrary attitude is entirely in keeping with her overall approach to her role as FLOTUS.

‘If you asked her [what she’s going to do now], she would say I will do whatever I feel like.’

One can only wonder, who will be the more unpredictable Trump in the White House this time round: the President, or his wife?