Melania Trump didn’t want to become first lady “come hell or high water,” a longtime friend of the Trumps told Vanity Fair.
“This isn’t something she wanted and it isn’t something [Donald Trump] ever thought he’d win. She didn’t want this come hell or high water,” the friend told the magazine in a new report published Sunday. “I don’t think she thought it was going to happen.”
But Melania Trump was reportedly the person who encouraged her husband to run for president, former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone told the magazine.
{mosads}“He always wanted to run. She is the one who pushed him to run just by saying run or do not run,” Stone said. “I don’t think she was ever too crazy about it.”
“She said, ‘It’s not my thing. It’s Donald’s thing.’ And I think she understood he was going to be unhappy if he didn’t run.”
Melania Trump declined to be interviewed for the Vanity Fair profile.
The first lady didn’t join President Trump in the White House until June, after their son Barron finished the school year in New York City.
She made headlines earlier this year for a public spat with President Trump’s first wife, Ivana, after Ivana joked that she was “the real first lady.”
“She plans to use her title and role to help children, not sell books,” Melania Trump’s spokeswoman said in a statement. “There is clearly no substance to this statement from an ex. Unfortunately only attention seeking and self-serving noise.”