President Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, are still going strong after 20 years of marriage.
“There is something in her – the strong woman – but at the same time, there is the soft power; she’s really good at balancing her husband,” the first lady’s official photographer, Régine Mahaux, told Hello! Magazine in an interview published Monday.
Mahaux admitted that she sometimes wonders how Melania, 54, has “the courage to keep going.”
“They’ve gone through so much. She’s committed. She loves him and he loves her,” Mahaux said.
The film director asserted that while Melania can hold her own, the former model has no problem staying out of the spotlight and focusing on the well-being of her husband, 78, and their son Barron, 18.
“She’s always in the right place. She’s always behind her husband. He’s in the light; she doesn’t need the light. She’s a very good No. 2,” Mahaux said, adding, “It’s always her husband first, and I like that; she has strong family values, to be a good wife and to make sure they’re happy.”
Melania is allegedly in a much different place than she was for Donald’s first term in the White House eight years ago.
“She’s always been hands on, but she’s more free nowadays to make a statement,” Mahaux said. “She’s a different person than she was eight years ago and has always been true to herself. This time, it feels like a different energy with new people that the President has surrounded himself with.”
Along with her steadfast devotion to the “Apprentice” alum, Melania reportedly has a reputation for being extremely kind to her devoted team of staffers.
“[When I had] just started to work for Mrs. Trump, I was preparing clothes for a fitting and saw her putting shoes in a suitcase,” her stylist, Hervé Pierre, told the magazine. “I immediately told her that she couldn’t do that and it was my job to do it, and she answered: ‘I always pack myself so I am sure what is in my luggage.’”
The designer continued, “She will also make a coffee for you herself. So if you have a vision of a woman surrounded by servants, you are wrong.”
The “Melania” author’s interior designer described Melania as an “inquisitive and thoughtful individual.”
“She values listening and learning from others when a subject or history is unfamiliar to her,” Tham Kannalikham said. “She understands the power of listening – an often overlooked but critical trait of strong leadership.”
Page Six reported last month that Melania made a statement of individuality with her navy coat and face-shielding boater hat at Donald’s presidential inauguration ceremony.
“She doesn’t care. She’s unreadable, inscrutable — and she likes it that way,” fashion journalist and historian Nancy MacDonell told Page Six at the time. “The look said ‘I’m flawless and in control,’ and it showed that she’s going to do things her way this time — she won’t look back.”
Melania even admitted that she doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with everything her husband does in office.
“I don’t always agree [with] what my husband is saying or doing, and that’s ok,” she told Fox News in January. “I give him my advice, and sometimes he listens, sometimes he doesn’t.”
Melania also clarified that she and her husband are not one entity and that she is more than just Donald’s wife.
“Maybe they didn’t understand me the way maybe they do now, and I didn’t have much support. Maybe some people, they see me as just the wife of the president,” she told the outlet at the time. “But I’m standing on my own two feet, independent. I have my own thoughts.”
Melania — who married Donald in 2005 and celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary Jan. 22 — will split her time between DC, Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower in New York City, where their son is a freshman at NYU.
“My first priority is, you know, to be a mom, to be a first lady, to be a wife, and once we are in on Jan. 20, you serve the country,” she shared.
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