Once Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016, Melania Trump became a household name. She was the First Lady, after all, and appeared on camera with the same regularity as previous first ladies such as Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton.
What makes Melania different from those other famous women is that she had a very robust modeling career long before she lived in the White House. This gives people endless opportunities to compare how Melania looks now to how she looked back then. Looking at the photos side-by-side, Melania looks completely different, leading many to speculate that she had had some work done.
The photographer who discovered Melania
Weirdly enough, we might never have heard of Melania Trump at all if not for a photographer named Stane Jerko. He once told Today that he was at a fashion show but that the person who caught his eye wasn’t a participant. This was a young Melania who he described as “a tall, slender, and attractive long-haired girl with distinct eyes.”
Jerko took numerous photographs of Melania. From there, she built a portfolio and built a modeling career that eventually brought her to America. That was where she met Donald Trump, and their romance would soon shape the rest of her life.
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Melania looked different when modeling
As we noted before, there are plenty of photos of Melania Trump from well before she married Donald. That makes it easy to compare images from when she was younger to images from the present day. When you look at these images side-by-side, it seems impossible to deny that she now looks completely different.
For example, she once had a rounder face, and her blue eyes appeared to be a bit wider back then. She was obviously quite attractive–her general beauty and features like high cheekbones are how she landed a modeling career in the first place. Certainly, Melania looks different now, but this may simply be because she decided to give herself the world’s most ambitious makeover.
A presidential makeover
Few people’s lives changed after Donald Trump’s presidential victory quite as much as Melania’s. She knew going in that his political win meant that she was going to be in the public eye more than ever before. Rather than be discouraged by this prospect, Melania instead teamed up with her stylist and came up with a makeover that would give her an entirely new look (more on this exact makeover very soon).
Interestingly, Melania didn’t pursue this makeover so much for vanity as she did to better relate to the American people. As reported by Yahoo!, her stylist said “We wanted a consistent look that allowed the public to feel more connected to her. When you’re new to people and suddenly so much in the public eye, people are looking for a sense of stability of some sort.”
One big area of focus was Melania’s hair. “When your hair looks the same, it helps people feel like they know you — it helps people feel more comfortable.” To be fair, Melania’s hair really has been one of the most consistent features of the Trump presidency!
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Melania’s changing hair color and skin
How, exactly, did Melania’s looks change over time? As detailed above, one of the changes has been her hair. In her modeling days, Melania would occasionally try a darker hair color. Many women experiment with hair colors, of course, but this change really stood out on Melania because it highlighted her pale skin.
Back in her modeling days, Melania was known for having white skin the same shade as porcelain. Eventually, she ditched these old looks in favor of lighter hair and darker skin. The final result is an arguably healthier look for the former FLOTUS, but her current appearance does look very different from her modeling photos as a result of these changes.
Accusations of plastic surgery
As you can tell, Melania has had some perfectly logical reasons to change her appearance up over the years. Certainly, changes in hair and skin color can make a major difference in someone’s overall appearance. But these changes don’t explain how her very facial structure looks different in older photos versus current ones.
Because of those differences and because Melania is both wealthy and famous, many people have concluded that she simply had plastic surgery. Certainly, this would provide the simplest possible explanation for why she now looks so different.
These accusations were in full swing in 2016, when Melania told GQ “I didn’t do anything. I live a healthy life, I take care of my skin and my body.” She even went so far as to say, “I’m against Botox, I’m against injections; I think it’s damaging your face.”
That last claim has raised the eyebrows of more than a few plastic surgeons who have agreed that, at the bare minimum, the former FLOTUS has received plenty of Botox injections. This can’t help but make us think that if Melania was lying about Botox, she may very well have been lying about never going under the knife.