Having shared a Paris apartment with Mrs. Melania Trump in the mid-Nineties at the dawn of their modeling careers, Victoria Silvstedt described her as very determined, very ambitious, so strong-minded, very Slovenian and such a good person. Melania Trump was modeling for Marilyn Gauthier and Silvstedt was at Metropolitan. We were just starting out together. At the beginning of your career, you would run to 12 castings a day with your model book, competing with hundreds of girls at each casting. We basically would spend the day on the Métro, on the subway underground. This was the time before cell phones. We were in a different country without speaking the language, Silvstedt said. “It’s not easy to move in with a stranger coming from two different countries. We really, really got along very well. She would never go out and want to party. She was very determined, very serious in her work.
Recalling their early days, she said, When you move to Paris, the first thing your agent tells you is, ‘Lose weight, lose weight. Don’t do sports.’” As an athlete, and former competitor on the Swedish ski team, that was an adjustment. “I was always very muscular. It was a tough transition going from the beauty queen Miss Sweden with a sporty and healthy look to Paris where they want to starve you. They said, ‘Don’t even take the stairs because it will make your legs big.’ It was quite a culture. When you’re young, you take all of that seriously.
As young models, they often ate at home together, making simple salads like tuna. Every time we ate something we would say, ‘Now we must work.’ We used to run up and down the stairs to burn it off. We were very determined,” Silvstedt said. “We didn’t care that they told us not to build up muscles because we had to burn the calories.
Describing Trump as stunning, gracious and real class, Silvstedt said Melania Trump will take on the role of first lady very, very well. Asked if she plans to reach out to Trump, Silvstedt said, “No, I’m not that kind of person. If I see her well, it’s going to be hard to see her now laughs.
Melania Trump was very high-fashion. She will be a beautiful first lady that’s for sure. I’m sure a lot of designers want to dress her and will fight to dress her, Silvstedt said. My mom came to visit us once for a week in Paris. She told my mom, ‘One day, I will be famous like Sophia Loren.’ Melania’s style icon was always Sophia Loren. That was the idol she had in her life the look, the beauty, her mystery,” Silvstedt said. That line hit me so hard yesterday when I saw her at the White House. I thought, ‘Wow there she goes.’ She has showed me. She must have had that inner strength knowing that something bigger was about to come. I don’t know unbelievable.