Melania Trump has often kept a low profile, staying out of the public eye and away from the attention that usually comes with being First Lady. But when it comes to controversy, her name often makes headlines. Throughout both of Donald Trump’s presidential terms, Melania found herself in several public scandals that affected the way people saw her.
One of the biggest issues started right after she was accused of copying parts of Michelle Obama’s speech during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Just a week later, people started looking into her educational background, and what they found raised eyebrows. Her official website had claimed that she held a degree in architecture from the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. But when people dug deeper, they discovered that this wasn’t true.
A biography titled Melania Trump: The Inside Story, released in 2016, stated that she actually dropped out after just one year of university to become a model. The book’s author, Bojan Pozar, a well-known journalist from Slovenia, claimed that Trump’s campaign team exaggerated Melania’s education history. According to Pozar, they wanted to make her look not just beautiful, but also intelligent and highly educated.
Once the truth was exposed and Melania became First Lady, her personal website was taken down. She later tweeted that the site, created in 2012, had been removed because it no longer reflected her current professional goals. The site stayed offline for quite a while. When it finally returned, all the false claims about her education were gone. Today, her website promotes her past projects as First Lady and also sells her memoir, audiobook, and jewelry.
Despite the controversy, Melania never apologized or admitted to misleading the public about her education. This continues to follow her, especially because the First Ladies before and after her are known for their strong academic backgrounds. Michelle Obama, for example, graduated from Princeton University with a sociology degree and then earned a law degree from Harvard. Jill Biden, who became First Lady in 2021, holds a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware.
Compared to them, Melania is the least formally educated First Lady in recent history. But education isn’t the only part of her past that people continue to question. Melania, originally from Slovenia, moved to New York in 1996. She started applying for U.S. citizenship in 2000 and received an EB-1 visa in 2001. This visa is often called the “Einstein visa” because it’s typically reserved for people with outstanding achievements — like Olympic athletes, Oscar winners, or top scientists and researchers. According to The Washington Post, Melania was one of just five Slovenians to get this special visa that year. But her career at the time mostly included some modeling work in Europe and an ad on a Times Square billboard.
This has led many to wonder how she qualified for such a prestigious visa. Some also question whether she followed all the legal rules around her immigration. While Melania says she always followed the law and entered the U.S. in 1996, there are reports and even a photoshoot that suggest she might have been in the country in 1995. Some of her earlier visa types may not have allowed her to work as a model, which adds more confusion to the timeline.
All of this becomes even more controversial because her husband, Donald Trump, has taken a tough stance on immigration, especially after returning to office for a second term. While he has been strict and vocal about cracking down on immigrants, Melania’s own journey to U.S. citizenship has raised several unanswered questions.
Unlike Donald Trump, who often responds loudly to criticism, Melania tends to stay silent. She doesn’t speak out about these issues or try to defend herself publicly. Instead, she focuses on her role as a wife, a mother, and the First Lady — keeping her distance from the drama, even when it follows her.
