
To the outside world, First Lady of the United States Melania Trump comes across as somewhat of a steely figure, little heard and little seen.
This enigmatic quality has inspired a raft of 'tell-all' books that each promise to provide insight into the 'real' Melania.
But the latest comes courtesy of the best-placed source yet: her former advisor and best friend, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.
"Melania and Me": How the friendship turned sour.
Wolkoff met the now-first lady in 2003 while working as a PR manager at Vogue. Then, the Slovenian-born woman was simply Melania Knauss — an up-and-coming model.
The pair struck up a 15-year friendship that came undone after Wolkoff took a role as a senior advisor to the Trump team in 2016 and then unpaid advisor to the first lady; a decision she now describes as "the worst mistake" of her life.
It all fell apart over Wolkoff's role in Donald Trump's 2017 presidential inauguration.
Wolkoff, an experienced event planner who'd been a producer for several Met Galas, was hired to coordinate the January 17 event.
At a cost of $US107 million ($145 million), it turned out to be the most expensive inauguration in history — twice that staged for Trump's predecessor, President Barack Obama. Naturally, the press began to raise questions about the event, which was financed using a mix of taxpayer funds and private donations. And it all came to a head when the New York Times reported that a whopping $27 million of the bill went to Wolkoff's firm.
Wolkoff, who claims she personally took home just US$480,000, has alleged that she was served up as a scapegoat by the White House because she had repeatedly raised concerns about the budget.
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