The New York Post has published photos of Melania Trump, wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump posing nude in a photo spread for a now-defunct French men’s magazine.
The Slovenian-born model, then 25 years old and known by her professional moniker Melania K, did the steamy photo session in Manhattan in 1995, according to Alé de Basseville, the French photographer who shot the sexy photos.
The images, some rarely seen and others never published, were obtained exclusively by The Post.
The bombshell photos show Melania wearing nothing but high heels and pouting for the camera, in a series of images shot from the front, the back and the side.
“Melania was super-great and a fantastic personality and she was very kind with me,” de Basseville told The Post, adding the former model never once felt uncomfortable posing for the nude pictures.
Melania’s sexy photo spread appeared in the January 1996 issue of Max, a French men’s magazine that went out of business in 2006. For de Basseville, the inspiration for the pictures was the Renaissance and a celebration of the female body.
“I think it is important to show the beauty and the freedom of the woman, and I am very proud of these pictures because they celebrate Melania’s beauty,” he said.
At the time of the shoot, Melania had just recently arrived in New York City from modeling stints in Paris and Milan, Italy. In Gotham she was booked for mostly commercial work and was later featured in an ad for Camel cigarettes, the source said.
When asked about the photos, Trump told The Post:
“Melania was one of the most successful models and she did many photo shoots, including for covers and major magazines. This was a picture taken for a European magazine prior to my knowing Melania. In Europe, pictures like this are very fashionable and common.”
In 1998, Melania was introduced to Trump during a New York Fashion Week party at the Kit Kat club hosted by Paolo Zampolli, who was then representing Melania through his company ID Model Management. The two tied the knot in 2005 in a ceremony at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.