**DISCLAIMER: This article was first published in March of 2019**
For someone who’s married to a man that’s so staunchly anti-immigration, Melania Trump’s own immigration story is a shady one, at best.
Supposedly the woman came to the United States on an “Einstein” visa, meant solely for individuals with some “extraordinary ability” and since we’ve now determined that she never finished college, and I really don’t think that blowing old, rich, white dudes counts as an extraordinary ability, we’ve all kind of been operating under the assumption that her visa was obtained through her modeling skills — not that she was really extra special in her ability to stand naked on a cheesy magazine cover, but it was pretty much the only option left.
But, according to an interview with her former NYC roommate, it seems that Melania’s “Einstein” visa really has not a single leg left to stand on anymore, as he’s now revealed that Melania never really modeled much at all, and she certainly didn’t make much money at it with the little she did do.
Matthew Atanian, the photographer who shared an apartment with Melania in New York told Vanity Fair that the former model turned now-former-FLOTUS was pretty disciplined in her pursuit of a modeling career, but compared to her fellow model in the 1990s, she was nothing to write home about.
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“She wore ankle weights around the apartment,” Atanian stated before claiming that Melania adhered to a strict diet of “five to seven vegetables and fruits every day.”
According to him, Mel’s “stiffness” was causing her modeling career to essentially fall flat on its face before she finally met Trump in 1998, whose connections ultimately landed her a few legitimate gigs — like the infamous Britsh GQ’s “Sex at 30,000 feet: Melania Knauss earns her air miles” shoot from January 2000.
And if you’ve ever done just a quick Google search for modeling photo of Melania, you’ll notice that many of them are not very flattering or glamorous shots.
Writer Quinn Cummings took to her Twitter account to lay this all out in detail for anyone who’s still curious:
I keep thinking about Melania’s zed card.
If you aren’t near the modeling business, a zed card or a comp card is the modeling equivalent of a headshot. It’s slightly different, because their stats will be on it and headshots are mostly of the actor’s, well, head.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) March 3, 2019
A zed card will have at least one full-body shot. Back before the Internet, this was the only way models could be submitted for work. As the assistant to a casting director back then, I saw thousands of these. It was both my work and a fun way to assure I always felt fat.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) March 3, 2019
Which is why her zed cards keep bugging me.
We have never seen one.
Models are constantly refreshing and updating their book as they get work. The better pictures become a new zed card. You are being hired because of your looks.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) March 3, 2019
The visuals which sell you have to be their best, so you and your booker are always trying to improve it. There are always previous cards left over. We have never seen a single zed card for any of the years she was supposed to be working surface.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) March 3, 2019
Also, no professional shoots of any kind. We have tons of early pictures of any model of her generation, even if you were only a second-tier catalogue model.
(No insult meant to catalogue. That stuff is BANK)
Again, if your life is your image, you keep careful track of it.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) March 3, 2019
This is what you find of Melania. There are more, but you get the point. These are the pictures your local photographer takes in your podunk Communist town which you send to a modeling agency, who never writes back. pic.twitter.com/cp2Kxkyq0j
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) March 3, 2019
Okay, just one more. pic.twitter.com/0iFK7LdTAL
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) March 3, 2019
The next time she’s working, it’s because she’s dating some old guy in New York and she’s sort of famous. There are literally no pictures of her work.
“But what about the nude ones with the girl?”
Yeah, that’s not modeling the way she tries to present herself.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) March 3, 2019
Which brings me to my point, which I am going to present very, very delicately.
There’s a decade she can’t account for.
There’s are nude pictures featuring implants which, besides being shoddy work, make her too big for top-level fashion modeling.
— Quinn Cummings (@quinncy) March 3, 2019
Ahh… Yet another Trump that’s nothing more than a big, fat liar. Why am I not surprised?
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Tolgenn
