So, Did We Learn Anything From Melania’s Memoir?

On Tuesday, less than a month away from the 2024 election, Melania Trump released her new self-titled memoir. In the unconventional promotional videos leading up to the release of Melania, the former First Lady stoically shared short book excerpts on her childhood, modeling career, meeting now-husband Donald Trump, and eventually moving into the White House. She described the book as “My Story. My Perspective. The Truth” (her capitalization, not ours).

The least expensive version of the book is $40 and spans 182 pages. In the middle of the memoir sit several dozen pages of glossy photos from magazine shoots, White House photographers, Melania’s personal archives, and Getty Images. On her website, Melania is selling a signed version of the memoir ($150) as well as a “collector’s edition” ($250) that includes additional photographs and a “digital collectible,” which seems to be her version of an NFT.

“As a private person who has often been the subject of public scrutiny and misrepresentation, I feel a responsibility to set the record straight,” she writes in the book’s introduction, formatted as a letter from her to the reader. However, anyone who comes in hungry for insight into some of the most significant political events in recent history — the 2016 election, the response to the COVID-19 epidemic, the January 6 insurrection — will need to find their literary food elsewhere. Melania is not a memoir that spills the beans. Rather, it is an inventory of some beans, arranged meticulously with little personal commentary.

In the spirit of saving you $40, here’s everything we did (and didn’t) learn in Melania.

She’s pro abortion rights … ish.

Perhaps the most surprising bit of information revealed in the memoir is Melania’s support of reproductive freedom. At least, it would be surprising, if it were not among the handful of noteworthy revelations being circulated around the book’s release. (It cannot be overstated how little there is to take away from this memoir.) Despite her husband’s role in overturning Roe v. Wade — and perhaps further complicating his recent murky comments on a federal abortion ban — Melania spends several paragraphs toward the end of her book defending “personal freedom” as it applies to reproductive rights:

A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes. Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire life.

She does specify “legitimate reasons” that someone would have an abortion (e.g., endangerment of the mother’s life, incest, rape) and emphasizes that “timing matters” when alluding to what conservatives dub “late-term abortions.” (She also notes that abortions conducted during later stages of pregnancy are “extremely rare.”)

Later in the book, she voices her desire to distance herself from her husband’s politics on the issue more explicitly: “While I may not agree with every opinion or choice expressed by Donald’s grown children, nor do I align with all of Donald’s decisions, I acknowledge that differing viewpoints are a natural aspect of human relationships.” This is included in a disjointed chapter toward the end of the book that also covers leaving the White House, launching an initiative to support children in the foster-care system, why she likes blockchain, a limited-edition animated Christmas ornament, “cancel culture,” and the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.

She’s an election denier.

Melania writes of the 2020 election, “You can’t continue to count votes for days, which is what they did. It was a mess. Many Americans still have doubts about the election to this day. I am not the only person who questions the results.” To be clear, mail-in ballots, which more and more voters are using, take longer to tally. It’s just the reality of counting millions of votes: In the U.S., our elections are a process that can, indeed, continue “for days.”

She claims she “wasn’t aware” of what was happening during January 6.

On the day of the insurrection, Melania and her team were busy doing “archival work” when she got a text from her press secretary asking if she wanted to “denounce the violence.” She had no idea what her staffer was referring to. “I found the question perplexing,” she writes, “When had I ever condoned violence?” She goes on to say that she “wasn’t aware of the events unfolding at the Capitol building,” noting that it is the responsibility of the First Lady’s chief of staff to provide detailed briefings, and hers had “failed to do so.” “Had I been fully informed of all the details, naturally, I would have immediately denounced the violence that occurred at the Capitol Building,” she writes. “I have always and will always condemn violence.”

Her childhood wasn’t “bleak,” okay?

In a chapter titled “April 26, 1970” — Melania’s birth date — she discusses her childhood, saying previously published stories “often missed the mark, painting a bleak and inaccurate picture of my upbringing.” Growing up, Melania lived with her parents and older sister in Slovenia while it was part of Yugoslavia. She says, “The communism there was different from that of the Soviet Union,” adding that “the Slovenia of my childhood felt unrestrictive, emphasizing the value of hard work and individual responsibility.” Throughout the book, Melania attributes success (whether it’s hers, her family’s, or Trump’s) to “work ethic,” a gentle allusion to the beloved conservative concept of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.

She gets her love of fashion from her late mother, who worked as a pattern maker. She also adopted her father’s “passion for automobiles”; she recounts the time when she was 7 and her dad brought home a French Cirtroën Maserati SM. She says it’s one of her “fondest memories.” She mentions limousines at least seven times in the memoir, while outside of photo captions, Melania mentions her stepchildren by name once (except Ivanka, whom she mentions by name twice).

She’s not a fan of “dishonesty.”

In a chapter tracing the beginning of her career, Melania talks about her experience winning a modeling contest in Italy and momentarily trusting her envelope of winnings to an event organizer, only to find the money gone when her belongings were returned to her. “Such dishonesty has no place in my life, and it never will,” she writes. Hmmm.

She thought Trump was “a breath of fresh air” when they met.

Melania details her first encounter with Trump at New York Fashion Week. She was 28; he was 52 and came to the event with “an attractive blonde woman.” He gave Melania his number — actually, he gave her two phone numbers, but she called only one. Their first date was at one of his properties in Bedford, New York. (“It was a very “Donald” kind of first date — a mix of business and pleasure.”) She says it was “refreshing to meet someone so successful yet down-to-earth,” later calling him “a breath of fresh air.” As far as what she thought Trump saw in her, “I think he appreciated that I had knowledge and experience under my belt. Maybe he saw me as someone he could have more in-depth conversations with? … Perhaps he saw me as more of a peer than the women he was used to spending time with.”

Trump calls Melania’s personal doctor “to check on [her] health.”

The former First Lady brings up these calls as an example of her husband’s “tenderness and thoughtfulness,” saying that his intention is to “ensure that I am okay and that they are taking perfect care of me.” Later in the same chapter, Melania describes their wedding, attended by “five hundred celebrity guests” including Shaquille O’Neal, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Anna Wintour, Simon Cowell, and Kelly Ripa:

The event was to be a lavish affair, with every element radiating sophistication and glamour. The beige, gold, and white color palette would create an ambiance that set the tone for the evening.

Ah, yes. Nothing sets a tone like beige. Also, I had to read this sentence, so now you do, too: “Donald sealed our union three times, with each kiss more tender than the last.”

She once had a jewelry and skin-care line, remember?

A chapter titled “All Business” reads like a product description desperately trying to reach a minimum word count. My favorite revelation in this section is that Melania met with chemists and “discovered the rejuvenating properties of caviar.”

She didn’t mean to plagiarize Michelle Obama’s speech.

Melania actually devotes an entire chapter, titled “Why Was the Speech Not Vetted?,” to this infamous incident. She talks about her “dismay and shock” when she was accused of plagiarizing Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention. “My initial reaction was one of disbelief, but upon closer examination, the undeniable similarities between the two speeches left me reeling.” In retrospect, however, she takes little to no accountability: “I had relied too much on others.” She says her “team’s failure to perform their duty” (i.e., vet her speech for plagiarism) left her with “a profound sense of betrayal.”

The White House has “different areas designated for specific purposes.”

Much of the discussion about Melania’s time in the White House focuses on the renovations she worked on throughout the property. When she first arrived, she said the White House’s “grandeur and beauty were undeniable, yet a sense of neglect lingered in the air.” She also says the White House’s layout is “relatively simple, with different areas designated for specific purposes.” Incredible.

Melania discusses her role in the White House like she’s writing a CV rather than a memoir. She talks about designing rugs, making the Queen’s Bedroom feel “feminine,” and designing a new tennis pavilion while COVID-19 shut down the rest of the country. “We faced criticism for continuing the project during the pandemic,” she writes, though “many workers thanked her.” “I chose to overlook the negativity and instead concentrate on the positive outcomes of our effort.” In November 2020, when the White House tennis pavilion was completed, the U.S. averaged 1,231 COVID-related deaths daily.

Contrary to rumors, her son Barron “is not autistic.”

After the 2016 election, Rosie O’Donnell, a vocal critic of Trump’s, reshared a video of the couple’s son, Barron, speculating about whether the then-10-year-old had autism. Melania talks at length throughout the memoir about her efforts to shield Barron from public security, and she cities this incident as “not only cruel and invasive but also unfounded.”

“There’s nothing shameful about autism (though O’Donnell’s tweet implied that there was), but Barron is not autistic,” Melania writes. She says the tweet, which O’Donnell apologized for a few days later, was “egregious,” “heartless,” and “careless.” “Barron’s experience of being bullied both online and in real life following the incident is a clear indication of the irreparable damage caused,” Melania writes. “No apology can undo the harm inflicted upon him.”

She goes on to talk about how she launched her Be Best campaign as First Lady in an effort to “address online safety and other critical issues affecting women and children.” The grammatically awkward slogan was intentional: “Its catchy, memorable, and unique nature set it apart.”

She believes trans women shouldn’t participate in women’s sports.

Wedged between lengthy passages on anti-police brutality protests and the time she and Trump tested positive for COVID, Melania devotes four paragraphs to transgender athletes. “Today, some groups attempt to impose their ideologies on everyone,” she begins, before launching into her thoughts on “when male-born athletes who identify as female compete against women.” She cites the “physical advantages” of male bodies, an argument that lacks any actual evidence.

She continues, “Some argue that the number of trans-athletes is low, but even one can upset the balance in a female league or tournament due to these physical advantages.” She also says the inclusion of trans athletes in sports could “collapse” another (cisgender) high-school athlete’s dreams of playing at a college level and be a “potential setback for equal pay in sports.” Again, she doesn’t provide any evidence or even an anecdotal story to support these claims. “As many of you know, I fully support the LGBTQIA+ community,” she writes. “But we must also ensure our female athletes are protected and respected.”