The Real Reason Donald Trump And Melania Sleep In Separate Bedrooms
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June 2020 saw the release of a new book about First Lady Melania Trump by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Mary Jordan. The book, The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump, is full of revelations, including one fascinating tidbit about the relationship dynamics between Melanie and her husband, President Donald Trump.
Jordan writes in her tell-all that Melania and her husband live separate, parallel lives — to the extent that Melania, along with her parents and her son, Barron Trump, resides in an entirely separate area in the White House, sans Donald. Earlier books have also shared similar reports, including Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by journalist Michael Wolff and Free, Melania by CNN correspondent Kate Bennett.
So why do Melania and President Trump sleep in different bedrooms? The answer may lie in the way they allegedly treat their relationship. As other reports reveal, their separate sleeping arrangements were set in place long before the couple moved into the White House.
Melania and Donald Trump haven't shared a bed in years
Kate Bennett's Free, Melania revealed that not only does First Lady Melania Trump sleep in a different bedroom from President Donald Trump, but also, her living quarters are on a different floor altogether. Her space more or less amounts to a private living space entirely, with two bedrooms, a "glam room," and a private gym, per Business Insider.
The American public quickly suspected a fractious relationship between the Trumps after Melania did not immediately join her husband in the White House, instead staying in New York City while their son, Barron, finished out the school year. Since then, Mary Jordan's 2020 tell-all, The Art of Her Deal, has revealed that Melania's refusal to move also served as leverage in her attempt to renegotiate her prenup.
It seems, however, that their independent sleeping situation far predated Trump's tenure as president. According to Business Insider, the couple has had this arrangement since at least 2006, when a woman who alleges to have had an affair with Trump was shown Melania's living quarters in their New York City residence at Trump Tower. As Trump reportedly put it at the time, Melania "liked her space to read or be alone" (via Business Insider). But that's not all.
Melania and Donald Trump may live separate lives
Adding more speculation to the state of Melania and Donald Trump's marriage, there are reports that they never sleep in the same bed at all, not even on rare occasions. According to a 2017 Us Weekly report, an anonymous source with firsthand access to the Trumps' inner circle disclosed that "they never spend the night together — ever," and that "Melania wants as little to do with Donald as possible."
"She is not interested in Donald, the presidency or anything involving him," the insider added. The source even said that "Melania does not keep hidden from everyone around her how miserable she is."
On the other hand, the Trump administration has consistently denied rumors that Melania and Donald Trump sleep in separate bedrooms or live separate lives. White House officials flatly dismissed Us Weekly's 2017 claims, stating that "it's unfortunate that you are going to feature unnamed 'sources' that have provided fictional accounts." At least one source told Us Weekly that the pair do share a bedroom, but have different beds. "It's very royal of them," the source claimed.
What's behind Donald Trump's rift with Melania?
The latest Melania Trump deep dive, Mary Jordan's The Art of Her Deal, purports that not only does Melania live in her own private living quarters, but she now frequently shares them with her parents — who officially became U.S. citizens in 2018, per The New York Times — as well as her son, Barron.
It's possible that Melania's family might have had to do with an ever-widening rift between her and Donald. As a 2018 op-ed from the Chicago Tribune pointed out, Melania's parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, were able to emigrate to the United States from their homeland, Slovenia, through a process called chain migration — which, as the op-ed candidly defines, is an "immigration process that allows U.S. citizens to sponsor immediate family members for legal residency." It's also the same process Trump has spent his presidency decrying. Per the Times, "Even as his in-laws were going through the process, Mr. Trump was denouncing it."
While it's pure speculation, the dissonance between Melania's parents' immigration process and Trump's own platform could have added to the tension between FLOTUS and POTUS.
It's certainly notable that multiple deep-dives into Melania's life have yielded the same report about her separate living quarters. But until we hear from FLOTUS herself, we'll have to take each detail with a grain of salt.