Melania and Me

The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady

De: Stephanie Winston Wolkoff

Narrado por: Stephanie Winston Wolkoff

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

What Melania wants, Melania gets.

The former director of special events at Vogue and producer of nine legendary Met Galas, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff met Melania Knauss in 2003 and had a front row seat to the transformation of Donald Trump’s then girlfriend from a rough-cut gem to a precious diamond. As their friendship deepened over lunches at Manhattan hot spots, black-tie parties, and giggle sessions in the penthouse at Trump Tower, Wolkoff watched the newest Mrs. Trump raise her son, Barron, and manage her highly scrutinized marriage.

After Trump won the 2016 election, Wolkoff was recruited to help produce the 58th Presidential Inaugu­ration and to become the First Lady’s trusted advisor. Melania put Wolkoff in charge of hiring her staff, organizing her events, helping her write speeches, and creating her debut initiatives. Then it all fell apart when she was made the scapegoat for inauguration finance irregularities. Melania could have defended her innocent friend and confidant, but she stood by her man, knowing full well who was really to blame. The betrayal nearly destroyed Wolkoff.

In this candid and emotional memoir, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff takes you into Trump Tower and the White House to tell the funny, thrilling, and heartbreaking story of her intimate friendship with one of the most famous women in the world, a woman few people truly understand.

How did Melania react to the Access Hollywood tape and her husband’s affair with Stormy Daniels? Does she get along well with Ivanka? Why did she wear that jacket with “I really don’t care, do u?” printed on the back? Is Melania happy being First Lady? And what really happened with the inauguration’s funding of $107 million? Wolkoff has some ideas...

Worth The Read!

A lot of additional facts about the characters and rivalries inside the East and West Wing of the Trump WH. Wolkoff is not at all how the NYT and Maggie Haberman portrayed her. She really is a victim...albeit a gullible victim of the whole Trump Family and cabal.
What I found interesting was how experienced Wolkoff is, not the amateur "event planner" the media and the WH have portrayed her as, but rather a true professional having worked at Vogue doing all their major events like the MOMA, under Anna Wintour, for over a decade.
The revelations about missing Trump inauguration funds is also at the heart of the book. A lot of surprises...and Wolkoff has the receipts! Worth it!

What you don't know can and will hurt you!

As I hear more and more Trump stories I am dumbfounded at how little people know of those they elect into office....and the baggage and family members they drag into office with them. Great book! Sad, sad outcome. No loss for the author of this friendship...huge loss for Mrs. Trump!

With a friend like this, who needs enemies?

I liked this book. Another stunning, detailed example of how this family dys-functions. The author's experience is that of a person who has been gaslighted big time.

A piece of history

Not really sure how to rate this book. On the one hand, it reads somewhat like a school girl’s diary of both a super crush on the most popular girl in school & a retelling of how mean the other kids could be. On the other hand, I believe her and note that her descriptions will be part of a lasting historical record on this administration & this first lady.

Mrs. Wolkoff was an accomplished woman in her own right prior to joining the PIC. I remain baffled.how she was so under the Trump spell that, despite many indications that Melania’s friendship was at best superficial, she tried to maintain the friendship even after her friend allowed her to be publicly ruined. This was not child’s play, but I believe young people could easily make a drinking game of how many times the words “love you” and “emoji” are stated.

Lessons for young women abound in this book. While the author makes a great stand for women when a reporter calls Melania a hooker, she doesn’t seem to understand that her decision to let these people use her talents without signing off on a contact or paying her for her expertise put them on notice that, in their minds, she was a loser to be used and discarded. She did not know her real worth and she did not understand the big picture or the other players in the game.

As to the descriptions of Melania, there are no surprises here. While Mrs. Wolkoff valiantly tried to paint a prettier picture during her service, truth always rises to the surface eventually. The book did leave me wondering, however, if it would have ever been written if Melania had not let that last birthday go by unnoticed.

In the end, we should all be thankful that Mrs. Wolkoff kept such detailed records for history’s sake and for the SDNY.

EXCELLENT BOOK!

I read the book and then listed to it on Audible. I cannot help but feel for Stephanie - the Trump administration is corrupt (there's no denying that), but to learn how cold and heartless Melania is too was not shocking, but rather "disappointing". These people will get theirs one day. All things come to an end. They have ruined and destroyed SO many lives, I just have to believe that justice will be served. My assumption is she's just going through the motions, waiting for Trump to die to get her pay and reinvent herself, but she's too far in the corruption and deceit - she'll be found guilty too. This can't go on for much longer, the thing is, Trump is old, he'll probably die before he sees his family in jail.