Melania Trump Doubles Down On Nude Modeling Like Never Before & It Totally Backfires

Melania Trump began working as a model as a teen, when Slovenian photographer Stane Jerko thought she'd look great on camera. Less than a decade later, Melania's stunning transformation led to modeling jobs in the U.S. While a lot of her work appeared in catalogs, there are also some spicier photos, like a January 2000 cover of British GQ where she's lying down naked on a furry throw on Donald Trump's private plane. As first lady, Melania touted this experience as a career highlight on her White House biography. More recently, on September 18, she celebrated it in a video on X (formerly Twitter). "Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modeling work?" Melania queried.

However, rather than answer her own question directly or show example photos, she shifted focus, asking, "Why has the media chosen to scrutinize my celebration of the human forum in a fashion photo shoot?" Melania then went on to show how nudity's been used in paintings and sculpture, before the video cues viewers to its main purpose: an ad for her upcoming autobiography, "Melania."

Some users on the platform were completely unimpressed. "The former First Lady and absent wife compares herself to classic naked pieces of art because she posed nude for cash," commented one user. "There is 'nude' modeling as in an *art form* and there is soft-core porn," asserted another. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, GQ editor Dylan Jones wouldn't call it art, either, but a "rather kitsch and camp story." 

Melania Trump's memoir has been attracting criticism since summer 2024, and combining a promo for it with her modeling past has given people opportunities to revisit past controversies. "You worked as a nude model while in this country on a visitor visa, that's illegal," claimed a user on X. During the 2016 election, Melania was reportedly distraught about her naked modeling photos. Subsequent media attention generated questions about whether she had possessed a work visa in the mid-1990s when they were taken. However, contrary to this X user's claim, the matter was settled in 2016. After Melania's attorney provided detailed info and the dates of the nude photos were investigated, it appeared that she had a H1B visa that allowed her to work.

Another X user had a slightly different visa contention with Trump, writing, "nude modeling does not qualify you for an Einstein Visa." Trump was given the difficult to obtain EB-1, or Einstein visa, back in 2001, just over a year after her naked cover for British GQ. Given the stringent requirements — the visa is only given to those with "extraordinary ability" in certain fields, per USCIS.gov — it caused some confusion as to how she obtained it. Even so, she's not the only model who's been chosen. "The notion that you somehow have to be a genius or Einstein is utter fiction," Chris Wright, a Los Angeles lawyer, informed The New York Times. "We have succeeded with models no more accomplished than Melania Trump."