From rags to riches. How Melania Trump spends her fortune

Inside the former First Lady's fortune

While Donald Trump boasts a whopping $2.5 billion (£2bn) fortune, his third wife Melania is estimated to be worth an impressive $50 million (£40.1m) in her own right. But how did she make her money before entering the White House, and how does she continue to rake in the cash today? And, perhaps most interestingly of all, what does she like to spend her megabucks on?

As the world watches to see her reaction to her husband's high-profile legal issues, read on to take a look inside the lavish lifestyle of Melania Trump. All dollar amounts in US dollars.

Passion for fashion

Born Melanija Knavs in 1970 in Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia – now part of Slovenia – the former First Lady had a modest upbringing compared to the lavish lifestyle she leads today. Her father was a car salesman, while her mother worked for a children's clothing company.

Melania showed a passion for fashion from an early age, attending runway shows at the textile factory where her mother worked. She began commercial modelling work at the age of 16 and told People magazine in 2016: "I always loved fashion. My mother was a fashion designer, so it was always in my blood."

Pictured: a young Melania (centre) attending a fashion show at her mother's workplace. 

Model moves

Melania attended the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, where she studied design and architecture. However, she dropped out after her first year to pursue a full-time modelling career.

In the early days, she worked in leading European fashion capitals like Paris and Milan, where she adopted the professional Germanised name "Melania Knauss". Her big break came at the age of 22, when she was chosen as runner-up in the "Look of the Year" contest held by Slovenian women's magazine Jana.

Cover girl

Melania moved to New York City in 1996, where she continued to make waves in the fashion world. At the peak of her career in 2000, she posed for both Sports Illustrated and GQ, and also featured on the covers of fashion titles like Harper’s Bazaar Bulgaria and Vanity Fair Spain.

While working in NYC in 1998, Melania met Donald Trump at a fashion event. After dating for several years, the couple tied the knot at Trump's lavish Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005, and Melania became a US citizen the following year.

Steamy photo shoots

Throughout her modelling career, Melania wasn't shy about posing without any clothes on. She took part in a steamy shoot for provocative French magazine Max in 1996, and famously posed for GQ wearing nothing but jewellery while aboard Donald Trump's private jet in 2000.

When Donald was elected president, these explicit images of the new First Lady resurfaced, causing quite a stir. Donald Trump publicly defended his wife, saying: "Melania was one of the most successful models, and she did many photo shoots, including for covers and major magazines. [The Max photo] was a picture taken for a European magazine prior to my knowing Melania. In Europe, pictures like this are very fashionable and common."

Bling business

Perhaps taking a leaf from her entrepreneurial husband's book, Melania launched her own eponymous jewellery collection in 2010 (pictured).

Her affordable range of gold-tone chains, faux diamond rings, and quartz watches – which retailed for between $30 (£25) and $200 (£166) – sold on the QVC shopping channel. But bling was just the beginning of Melania's enterprising endeavours...

Bona fide businesswoman

Melania debuted her eponymous skincare line in 2013. Her luxury caviar-infused creams were launched in high-end department store Lord & Taylor and sold for between $50 (£42) and $150 (£125). Melania even appeared on an episode of her husband's TV show The Apprentice (pictured), with the contestants tasked with creating an advertising campaign for her products.

After becoming FLOTUS in 2017, Melania shelved both her jewellery and skincare businesses to focus on her new role. But it sounds like this wasn't too much of an income loss for her: an investigation by the Associated Press into her financial filings found that the two businesses collectively pulled in just $15,000 (£12.5k) to $50,000 (£41.5k) for Melania in 2016.

Snap happy

Her modelling days are behind her, but Melania still rakes in a fortune from her time in front of the camera. It was revealed in 2017 that she earned between $100,000 (£83.1k) and $1 million (£830.5k) in royalties from old photos on Getty Images.

Melania benefits from a lucrative licensing deal with the image distributor, which includes almost 200 pictures taken by Belgian photographer Régine Mahaux years before the Trumps entered the White House.

Licensing limits

There might be pictures aplenty of the former First Lady, but according to reports Melania guards her image closely. The photos that she makes money from can only be used for "positive" coverage and seem to be removed from articles that portray her, or her relationship with Donald, in a less-than-flattering light. 

Lucrative lawsuit

And that's not the only time Melania has taken on the press. In 2017, she sued the owners of the UK's Daily Mail newspaper after it published a story during the 2016 US elections claiming that she had worked as an escort during her modelling days. She won the case, which was held at London's High Court, and the newspaper retracted the claim, issuing an apology.

Melania was seeking a hefty $150 million (£124.6m) in damages from the Daily Mail. While the amount she accepted has never been disclosed, sources have suggested she walked away with a significantly smaller sum of just under $3 million (£2.5m), which included legal costs and damages. 

NFT projects

In December 2021, in her first major project since leaving the White House, Melania launched her very own non-fungible token (NFT) platform selling digital artworks. Her first offering was a digital watercolour of her eyes by French artist Marc-Antoine Coulon. The image was selling for around $180 (£150) apiece, with Melania promising a portion of the sales to her Be Best initiative, which supports children who are ageing out of the foster care system. 

NFT projects

In January 2022, Melania launched her Head of State NFT collection, which starred the custom-designed white hat that she wore when welcoming French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte to the White House in 2018 (pictured). The collection was sold for $180,000 (£149.7k), though Melania has since been accused of buying it herself after the auction flopped. 

Royalties

Rumours aside, Melania's NFTs were listed as an income source on personal financial disclosures that her husband filed earlier this month. Across 101 pages of documents, Donald outlined the money he and his wife have made since he left the White House – although it's worth noting that Trump, who's required to file financial disclosures as a presidential candidate, was allowed to provide broad income ranges rather than exact figures.

The majority of Melania's money came from royalties that she earned through MKT World LLC, her modelling business, which has brought her between $1 million and $5 million (£799k-£3.99m) since 2021.

Property deals

The filings also revealed that Melania makes money through property investments. The former FLOTUS has reportedly made up to $15,000 (£11.9k) in rent from property deals in her native Slovenia since leaving the White House, although it's not clear how many properties she owns or how much they're worth. Now let's take a look at how Melania likes to splash her cash...

Swanky private pad

It goes without saying that Melania and Donald have enjoyed many lavish abodes over the years, including his luxury Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and, of course, the White House. But in addition to her real estate investments in Slovenia, the former First Lady has her very own private property in the US too. In 2016, she bought a one-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom apartment on the 33rd floor of Trump Tower in New York City for a cool $1.5 million (£1.2m).

It’s unknown why Melania purchased the property since she already shares the $100 million (£83.1m) penthouse apartment in the building with her husband and their son Barron, but it's rumoured that she uses the space as a library.

Fashion-forward First Lady

Melania reportedly spent upwards of $1 million (£831.5k) on clothing during her tenure as FLOTUS. Among her most expensive looks were a shimmering $7,995 (£6.6k) Monique Lhuillier gown (pictured) that she wore to a White House state dinner in 2017 and a $9,590 (£8k) Michael Kors sequin suit that she wore to Congress that same year.

But the costs of these glam outfits are just a drop in the ocean compared to her most expensive look of all time...

Inside the former First Lady's fortune

When Melania tied the knot with Trump in 2005, her custom Dior bridal gown reportedly cost a staggering $100,000 (£83.1k), making it one of the most expensive wedding dresses off all time.

Weighing in at a whopping 60 pounds, the garment was adorned with 1,500 diamonds and pearls, featured a 13-foot train, and took over 500 hours to create. 

The wedding itself, which was held in the ballroom at the Trump family's Mar-a-Lago estate, came with a jaw-dropping total price tag of around $2.5 million – accounting for inflation, that's equivalent to over $3.8 million (£3.2m) today.

Prenup

Like Trump's previous two wives, Marla Maples and the late Ivana, Melania was asked to sign a prenup. Although various reports claimed the marriage was rocky and that Melania would seize the chance to divorce as soon as her husband left the White House, that hasn't proved to be the case – but what are the financial arrangements should the relationship break down?

The terms of the prenup have been shrouded in secrecy, with some legal experts quoted in The Mirror claiming they suspect Donald and Melania would each keep any assets in their own names (in what's called a title control prenup).

Reportedly, it's likely Melania would also receive an additional allowance for their son Barron. When Trump and Ivana divorced in 1992, Ivana received a payout of $10 million (£8.3m) as well as $650,000 (£540.2k) a year in child support.

Claims that Melania's marriage to Donald is shaking under the strain of his legal troubles have escalated in recent months, with adult film star Stormy Daniels – who allegedly had an affair with Donald in 2005 and was paid $130,000 (£104k) to keep quiet about it in 2018 –saying: "Maybe [Melania will] ask me to testify at her divorce hearing." However, Melania has spoken out just once in recent weeks, issuing a neutral statement on Twitter asking "readers to exercise caution and good judgement" when reading reports about her in the press.

Glitz and glam

Melania doesn't only have a penchant for expensive clothes – she loves extravagant jewellery too. A $68,500 (£56.9k) Cartier Panthère necklace (pictured) and a pair of eye-catching emerald earrings are just some of the stand-out pieces in her enviable collection. 

To pull her super stylish outfits and accessories together, Melania has her very own make-up artist and hair stylist. In fact, her long-time MUA Nicole Bryl once told US Weekly that Melania planned to have a "glam room" installed in the White House.

Luxury spa days

When it comes to relaxation, Melania likes to do it in style. Her go-to getaway location for R&R is the upscale, members-only Trump Spa at Mar-a-Lago (pictured), which offers facilities like massage and pedicure rooms, as well as hair and make-up stations. Melania was reportedly visiting up to twice a day in a bid to unwind during her husband's highly publicised impeachment trial in 2021.

However, during her term as the First Lady, Melania came under fire when it was revealed that she had spent around $64,000 (£53.2k) of taxpayer’s money on a spa break to the resort, with the private jet journey alone costing over $16,000 (£13.3k) per hour. Between January and April 2017, she reportedly also racked up more than $676,000 (£561.8k) in public money flying between Trump Tower, Washington, and Florida, according to Splinter.

Model mother

Melania's career has seen her move from model to businesswoman to First Lady. However, she reportedly considers her full-time job to be the role of motherhood and has refused over the years to hire a nanny for her son Barron.

But she still splurges in other ways when it comes to her only child. When Barron, now 17, was just seven years old, Melania dressed him in smart suits and used her brand's luxury caviar-infused moisturiser on his skin.

School fees

No expense is spared when it comes to Barron's education either. Trump's youngest son has attended Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School and St. Andrew's Episcopal School (pictured), which both cost a hefty $40,000 (£33.2k) per year.

Now discover how Donald Trump makes money