Melania and Me Titelbild

Melania and Me

The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady

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Melania and Me

Von: Stephanie Winston Wolkoff
Gesprochen von: Stephanie Winston Wolkoff
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Über diesen Titel

 #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... Frauen Politik & Aktivismus Präsidenten & Staatsoberhäupter Unterhaltung & Stars
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I’ve read a fair number of books on Trump that have come out during the past 4 years. Some were very illuminating, some rang true but had a taste of back-stabbing, some were full of facts that had been told before. This book stands out in many ways. The author, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff had known Donald and Melania for a decade when Trump was elected president. She was in close contact with Melania, which at the time, Stephanie took for friendship. As an experienced organizer of high-end events, she was hired among others to plan the inauguration ceremony and accompanying functions. Being a compulsive stickler for documentation and accounting, she felt uneasy with the foggy finances around the inauguration. She was deliberately kept out of the cost loop and had enough on her hands with finding artists who would not refuse to celebrate Trump’s ascension to the White House.
She accepted an unpaid job as advisor to the First Lady helping her organize her Be Best Campaign and supporting her in many other domains. Then, in 2018 financial irregularities around the inauguration events came into the focus of several criminal investigations and Stephanie became the target of a smear campaign in the press, organized to divert attention from the Trump family and their cronies. As it turned out she had been groomed as the scapegoat all along. Some had tried to give her a hint at the time but for fear of discovery were too oblique to be understood. When I looked up her Wikipedia article right now, it still pretends she got 26 million $ for her job at the inauguration which apparently is THE LIE fed to the press by members of the White House.
What makes this book stand out? First of all, it draws a picture of Melania that is quite different from how she is presented in the press or perceived by the public. You see her strengths and her flaws from the benevolent perspective of a friend. There is a gradual sobering up during Stephanie’s work for the First Lady and finally the painful awakening to the truth that Melania isn’t prepared to utter one public word in support of her ‘friend’ although she knows exactly what is going on in her husband’s entourage. She, as well, is a true Trump.
A second interesting aspect of the book is the insight into the intrigues of the White House. I knew about it but hearing it from someone who was caught in the crossfire is different. Ivanka plays an especially odious role in that drama.
Donald Trump is not mentioned often and when he is, Stephanie is honest about her poor opinion about his performance as a president, a man and a human being. Still, she shows unexpected sides of him that made me better understand why he was able to win over certain people. People like herself. We see how he behaves in Melania’s presence and it is rather surprising.
It is evident that Stephanie has been badly hurt. She has not forgiven Melania’s betrayal nor come to terms with the intentional slaughter of her reputation, even though she has been exonerated from any wrong-doing by the investigations. There are some repetitions in the text that might have been cut. But her voice rings authentic and true and fair. She never seems revengeful or biased. An added plus is the fact that she is herself reading the audiobook. The enthusiasm for her jobs is palpable as is her compassion for Melania, when she is again side-lined by Ivanka. The distress you hear is Stephanie’s real distress.
If you are interested in background to Trump’s presidency or Melania herself, this book is definitely a compelling and honest read. I finished it in one day.

A deeper insight than ever before

Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. Bitte versuche es in ein paar Minuten noch einmal.
The authors shaky voice is listing names, events and telling tales of how she was so dedicated, experienced and professional working without a contract or pay and yet people constantly tried to sabotage her... Melania is mentioned here and there. So, apparently at every (!) point in time the author was regularly upset by things that Melania thought were ok, stating "that's how it is", "don't worry about it" etc.
Author states that she's been friends with Melania forever... but also writes that Melania did not pronounce author's son's name correctly and called him Taylor instead of Tyler...
I do not trust the author and feel like she was fine with everything she's criticizing in this book until she got fired and after that she found her ethics and decided it was time to tell all...
I struggled to get through the first half of the book and at one point just could not listen to it anymore. Yikes!

Basically unreadable - I did not get through it!

Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. Bitte versuche es in ein paar Minuten noch einmal.
I don't believe I could ever conceivably be a Trump fan, but if there was anything that could make me feel sorry for Donald Trump and his family, it's such tell-all books by family, former friends or staff. I've endured listening to the end of this rambling book and I'm still wondering what exactly was supposed to be its point. The author, a former friend of Melania Trump's is recruited to organize, or help organize, Trump's inauguration. There follows a long account of mostly boring details about the color scheme of napkins, supposed celebrities that were or were not to perform at the inauguration,clothes, the presence or absence of fireworks and the like, which I suppose people in the author's line of work find important, but you've got to wonder... Then the author goes on to work as, again supposedly, Melania's unpaid and unofficial chief-of-staff, mostly to set up an "initiative" that few others, least of all Melania, seem to care about. Then the author, unfortunately, has a medical emergency, two operations and is out of action for a few months. She thankfully recovers, is back but is unfavorably portrayed in a New York Times' article as having been responsible for the very high cost of Trump's inauguration. She somehow thinks this is a terrible injustice done to her, but you struggle to understand what exactly was wrong in the story and why it is supposed to be Melania's or, indeed, the Trump White House's fault. Her unpaid services contract (a crazy thing to sign in the first place, as the author at least is the first to admit) is terminated. She is resentful but also keeps exchanging texts and emojis (repeatedly described in the book in detail) with Melania. Then Melania stops talking to her, which is the end of her friendship with her, so the author writes this book to let us know that Melania is a horrible person, as she has finally discovered. Presumably for being what Melania has always been, namely a very good looking former model who married a much older rich man and, in the process, obtained previously undreamed-of financial security for her, her parents and siblings, so she could sit around all day doing mostly nothing. Not very inspiring, I know, but should it have been? What exactly would you expect from somebody who became Trump's third wife with a background such as Melania's? And, whilst, as I said, not at all inspiring, why exactly is it worth writing a book about? All very confusing!

Oh, and the author (who reads her own book) mumbles and is sometimes hard to understand. Her strange pronunciation of some words (a-ss-essories?!) I'll let slip, since she' American and I'm used to British English.

What is her problem?

Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. Bitte versuche es in ein paar Minuten noch einmal.
I believe that this story is true, and that the experiences related really happend. The author has facts, witnesses and dates for much of what she says.
That said: this book is a waste of time, especially in the audio book form. The author knew that Melania Trump could be a cold and indifferent person: why is she suprised that she became the object of this indifference? Why would a professional such as the author work for months for free, and then be surprised that her contract (such as it was) was terminated?
The tone of the book is self-aggrandizing and sounds like it was written by a smart teenager. If I never hear the word "emoji" again it will be too soon. The inclusion of so many juvenile text messages back and forth is unnecessary and quickly becomes tiresome.
And why in Gods name does the author read her own work? She speaks in rapid, jerky bursts: very disconcerting. She does her own book a disservice.

"Thumbs down emoji"

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