Melania Trump ex-confidante tell-all

dishes on 'Princess Ivanka'

• 1 September 2020
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Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

A tell-all memoir by an ex-associate of First Lady Melania Trump has disclosed unflattering
details about the White House as her husband seeks re-election.

In Melania and Me, published Tuesday, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff claims she witnessed "deceit" and
"deception" throughout her former friendship.

The White House has denounced the book as a "bizarre twisting of the truth".

On Monday, the author said she was working with authorities on a financial probe of Mr Trump's
inauguration.

Mrs Winston Wolkoff, a longtime event planner for Vogue magazine, also describes the widely reported
tensions between Mrs Trump and her step-daughter Ivanka Trump, who Mrs Trump allegedly refers to
as "princess".
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionThe author and her husband on the left pictured at a 2008
fundraiser gala with the Trumps

Mrs Trump, she writes, is a fan of emojis and once sent her a text message describing Ms Trump and her
husband Jared Kushner - both senior White House advisors - as "snakes".

On Monday Mrs Winston Wolkoff, who was a senior organiser for Trump's inauguration, told ABC News
that she was co-operating with investigators who are scrutinising allegations of financial crimes
involved with spending for the event.
▪ How Ivanka Trump has made her mark

What else does the book describe?

Mrs Winston Wolkoff says her 15 year friendship with Mrs Trump ended two years ago after the first
lady "betrayed" her by refusing to publicly defend her and an unpaid White House aide from claims of
financial mismanagement while planning the inauguration.

She describes feeling "stabbed in the back" by someone who has changed greatly over the time they
have known each other.

"I witnessed the transformation of Melania from gold plate to 24-karat gold," Mrs Winston Wolkoff
writes, adding: "Watching her now, and seeing that only the gold shell remains, I have to wonder if that's
all she ever was, and I was the sucker who bought the fake watch on the street corner."
A spokeswoman for Mrs Trump responded: "The book is not only full of mistruths and paranoia, it it is
based on some imagined need for revenge… Sadly, this is a deeply insecure woman whose need to be
relevant defies logic."

The author discloses surprising nuggets about the private lives of the Trumps as the now-president ran
for office and won the White House. In one episode, Mrs Winston Wolkoff describes how the future first
lady reacted in 2016 after hearing of the Access Hollywood tape in which her husband boasts of being
able to "grab" women due to his fame.

"She was radiant, she was smiling," Mrs Winston Wolkoff writes. "It was as if nothing happened."

"She knows who she married... She knew what she was getting into, and so did he," says the author, who
adds that she never voted in the presidential election before 2016.

Mrs Winston Wolkoff says one of Mrs Trump's often repeated lines is "pleasing anyone else is not my
priority", and later writes: "Ever the pragmatist, she reasoned that since she had no control over
people's thoughts, why should she care what they believed."

The book, which is dedicated to Mrs Trump, claims that the first lady refused to move into the White
House for five months until the shower and toilet used by the Obamas had been renovated, and that Mr
Trump overruled her chosen colour for the wall paint.