Melania Trump seen passionately kissing 9/11 firefighter in Valentine's Day cover for New York magazine
Melania Trump's past as a popular model in New York resurfaced in the public consciousness this week when a magazine cover that showed her passionately kissing a firefighter began doing rounds on the internet.
In 2002, when the FLOTUS was still a struggling model, she was roped in by the 'New York’ magazine to appear on its cover for its Valentine's Day special edition titled Singles. She's seen passionately kissing a 9/11 firefighter in the cover.
The photo was supposed to be a homage to the first responders of the 9/11 attacks, especially the firefighters, who sacrificed their lives trying to rescue the civilians from the attack on Twin Towers.
The photo was clicked by Firooz Zahedi, who was responsible for hiring Melania and the firefighter named Daniel T. Keane. The photo was reportedly inspired by the iconic Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph of a sailor and nurse kissing in Times Square on V-J Day.
At the time of the photoshoot, Melania was in an on-and-off relationship with Donald Trump, who was a well known real-estate developer in the city.
A journalist called Matt Haber recently rediscovered the photo featuring FLOTUS, New York Post reported.
After the photo resurfaced, the 'New York' mag released a statement saying, “Recently, the journalist Matt Haber learned something that we at New York had forgotten: The female model we’d hired was a pretty young Slovenian named Melania Knauss, who had been dating a New York real-estate developer on and off for several years and married him a couple of years after that. We did not, at the time, expect to be working with the future First Lady of the United States. But we were.”
Daniel T. Keane, who appeared on the cover alongside Melania, recalled details from the day of the photoshoot. He revealed that he did not know who Melania was at that time.
“The person who was doing my hair and makeup, they said, ‘Do you know who that is?'” he recalled. I don’t know any models, I really wasn’t into the scene. And they said, ‘That’s Melania Knauss. That’s Donald Trump’s girlfriend.’ And I said, ‘Oh, okay’.”
Three years later, Melania would get married to Donald Trump, and eventually become the first lady.