Long before the motorcades, state dinners and carefully photographed appearances of public life, Melania Trump was a young model trying to establish herself in Europe.
In the early 1990s, she spent time working in Paris, where she shared an apartment with another aspiring model: Swedish beauty Victoria Silvstedt. Silvstedt would later become Playboy’s 1997 Playmate of the Year and build an international career of her own. Le Point.fr
Their life together looked remarkably different from the glamorous futures awaiting them.
There were crowded casting calls, endless journeys on the Paris Métro and evenings spent comparing how badly—or occasionally how well—their auditions had gone.
And according to Silvstedt, there was plenty of tuna salad.
Two young models chasing the same dream
Melania, then known as Melania Knauss, had left Slovenia to pursue modeling internationally.
Paris became one of the important stops in that journey.
Silvstedt had arrived from Sweden with similar ambitions. She has recalled that the Paris modeling world was far less glamorous from the inside than outsiders might imagine.
Models could attend around a dozen castings in a single day, carrying their portfolios from appointment to appointment and competing against enormous numbers of other hopefuls.
Silvstedt recalled that she and Melania essentially spent their days riding the Métro between castings. This was before smartphones made navigating an unfamiliar city effortless, and both women were trying to establish careers far from home. Yahoo
At night, they returned to the apartment and compared stories.
Silvstedt later remembered conversations along the lines of: How many castings did you have? Did anyone actually look at your book?
Sometimes hundreds of models had apparently been competing for the same opportunities. ELLE Sweden
Their apartment was near Notre-Dame
The future First Lady wasn’t living anything resembling a presidential lifestyle.
According to Silvstedt’s recollections, the women lived in a sixth-floor apartment near Notre-Dame in central Paris. Contemporary accounts describe it as a modest model apartment rather than an extravagant celebrity residence. Le Point.fr
And there was one particularly memorable feature:
The stairs.
Silvstedt recalled regularly taking the stairs rather than relying on an elevator, turning the six-floor climb into another way of keeping active while working as models. Inside Edition
It is a wonderfully ordinary detail considering where their lives eventually went.
Decades later, one roommate would become First Lady of the United States.
The other would become an internationally recognized model and television personality.
Back then, they were simply two young women climbing six flights of stairs after another exhausting day of auditions.
Their dinners weren’t glamorous either
Their food apparently matched the simplicity of the apartment.
Silvstedt has said that she and Melania frequently stayed home rather than spending their evenings eating in fashionable Paris restaurants.
They cooked simple meals themselves.
One she specifically remembered was tuna salad. Inside Edition
The women also spent free time visiting museums and exploring Paris rather than embracing the nonstop nightlife often associated with young models.
Silvstedt’s memories consistently portray Melania as particularly disciplined.
She called her a remarkably good roommate—quiet, neat and focused on her work. Vanity Fair
Melania was different from many of the other models
That reserved personality appears repeatedly in recollections from people who knew Melania during her modeling years.
Silvstedt remembered her as determined, ambitious and strong-minded. Yahoo
She wasn’t particularly interested in partying.
She worked.
She attended castings.
She came home.
And she prepared to do it again.
The two women weren’t even necessarily competing for exactly the same jobs.
Silvstedt has explained that Melania’s appearance was better suited to editorial work, while her own look pushed her toward more commercial modeling. That meant they could support one another while pursuing somewhat different opportunities. Monaco Life
Victoria remembers Melania having one very specific ambition
There is another intriguing detail Silvstedt has shared about her former roommate.
Melania admired Sophia Loren.
Silvstedt recalled Melania talking about wanting to emulate the legendary Italian actress’s elegance and image someday. Inside Edition
At the time, it probably sounded like the enormous dream of a young model trying to get noticed in Paris.
Neither roommate could have known how dramatically their lives were about to change.
Silvstedt’s breakthrough eventually took her to the United States. She became Playboy’s Playmate of the Month in December 1996 and then Playmate of the Year in 1997, before landing major modeling and television work. ELLE Sweden
Melania’s path also led across the Atlantic.
New York changed everything for Melania
In 1995, while working in Europe, Melania met modeling executive Paolo Zampolli.
He encouraged her to try the American market, and in 1996 she relocated to New York. Wikipedia
Once again, her accommodations were considerably more modest than the life people associate with her today.
She shared a Manhattan apartment with photographer Matthew Atanian, and people who knew her during that period similarly remembered a woman who largely kept to herself and concentrated on work. Vanity Fair
Then came the meeting that altered the direction of her life.
In 1998, Melania met Donald Trump at a Fashion Week party in New York.
Their relationship eventually became serious, and they married in Palm Beach in January 2005.
Their son Barron was born the following year.
In January 2017, Melania became First Lady for the first time.
And following Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, she became First Lady again in January 2025.
The contrast with those Paris years could hardly be greater.
The former roommates eventually crossed paths again
One photograph from years later provides a particularly fascinating glimpse of how far both women had traveled.
Melania and Victoria were photographed together with Donald Trump at a Playboy-related event in New York in 2003.
By then, Silvstedt was famous in her own right.
Melania was no longer the anonymous model sharing a sixth-floor Paris apartment with her.
And Donald Trump was standing between the two former roommates.
Silvstedt has subsequently laughed about how peculiar the photograph looks in retrospect, particularly because people unfamiliar with their history might assume something entirely different about why the three were together.
She has explained that Melania was simply her former Paris roommate. ELLE Sweden
Their lives went in completely different directions
Silvstedt continued building an international entertainment career.
Melania gradually moved away from modeling and into an increasingly public role beside her husband.
Yet when Silvstedt has spoken about those early years, she hasn’t described the future First Lady as someone already living an extravagant lifestyle.
Quite the opposite.
Her memories are filled with extremely ordinary details.
The Métro.
The castings.
The stairs.
Simple dinners.
Coming home exhausted and talking about the day’s disappointments.
Silvstedt has described that Paris period as genuinely difficult, remembering herself as a struggling model who sometimes attended casting after casting without getting the reaction she wanted. ELLE Sweden
Melania was going through the same uncertain stage.
The RARE PHOTOS make the contrast even more striking
Looking at RARE PHOTOS of Melania from her early modeling years beside images from her later life creates an extraordinary visual timeline.
The polished public figure recognizable today once spent her days carrying a modeling portfolio through Paris and competing for jobs alongside hundreds of other young women.
Silvstedt remembers her as disciplined even then.
She was quiet.
She was focused.
And, according to her former roommate, she seemed determined to build something larger for herself. Yahoo
No one in that small Paris apartment could possibly have predicted precisely what “larger” would eventually mean.
From a sixth-floor apartment to the White House
Perhaps that’s what makes this forgotten chapter so fascinating.
It isn’t really a story about glamour.
It’s about the period before the glamour arrived.
Before Melania became one of the world’s most photographed women, there were days spent underground on the Paris Métro rushing between castings.
Before elaborate state dinners, there were simple meals cooked at home.
Before the White House, there was a shared apartment near Notre-Dame.
And before Victoria Silvstedt became a Playboy star and Melania Knauss became Melania Trump, they were simply two aspiring models returning home each night to compare notes and wonder whether tomorrow’s casting might finally change everything.
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