In 2016, The New York Post unearthed nude photos of Melania Trump from a 1996 photo shoot for Max, a French fashion magazine, and published them on the front page.
Melania Trump wrote that her upbringing in Europe instilled “a more open and accepting attitude” toward nudity and that posing naked was “commonplace and hardly scandalous” during her time working as a model.
“The female form was once revered and honored in Western culture,” she wrote. “Historically, artists produced magnificent paintings and sculptures that exalted the beauty of the feminine figure. Nudity was a medium through which humanity was elevated and celebrated. This sentiment resonated deeply with me when I posed for Vogue during my pregnancy. I believed then, as I do now, that women should take pride in their bodies, not feel shame.”