Melania Trump - in pictures

Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, arrive at the New York Hilton Midtown for an election night party in 2016

More serious attention has focused on her early work in the US. The Associated Press news agency claims that Melania may have worked without the correct papers when she began modelling in the US in 1996. She received her green card in 2001 and became a US citizen in 2006, a year after she married Trump. The Trumps deny any wrongdoing

Born Melanija Knavs in 1970 in what is now Slovenia, the First Lady is Donald Trump’s third wife. They started dating back in 1998 and married in 2005. Their only child, son Barron, was born the following year

During the 2016 US presidential election campaign it also emerged that Melania had a secret half-brother. Preparing a profile for GQ, reporter Julia Ioffe discovered the first lady’s father had had a son before marrying Melania’s mother

A well-known international model, Melania is the only first lady to have posed nude, for a French men’s monthly magazine in the 1990s

She is also unusual among first ladies in that she speaks five languages: Slovene, English, French, Serbian and German

After a month out of the spotlight, Melania returned to the public eye in style at the president’s first State of the Union address. Many saw her all-white outfit as a reference to those worn by Democrat women as a tribute to the suffragette movement, while others noticed the similarities with the all-white wardrobe worn by Hillary Clinton during the election campaign

Melania caused waves when she became the first first lady to decide against moving into the White House after her husband was sworn in. The Wall Street Journal has learnt that during the first three months of her husband’s presidency, her travel between New York, Washington DC and Florida, where the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort is, cost taxpayers more than $675,000 (£478,000)

Rumour has it that when the billionaire real estate tycoon first asked for her number at a party, Melania said no

Trump’s defeated presidential rival Hillary Clinton was a guest at their wedding, along with her husband Bill. Among the other 350 friends, family and celebrities who attended the ceremony at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida estate were Heidi Klum, Barbara Walters and Simon Cowell