He said models at that time did photo shoots for free to get exposure.
The photographer who was behind the lens as Melania Trump posed nude in 1996 is coming to her defense following accusations she may have worked in America illegally.
Read: After Nude Photos Are Released, Melania Trump Fights Accusation She Came to U.S. Illegally
Jarl Ale de Basseville told Inside Edition: "She didn’t get paid. No magazine at the time paid their models."
The photographer said up-and-coming models like Trump did photo shoots like this for exposure and to get their name out to the public.
Trump blasted a report this week that suggests she may have broken immigration laws when she first came to the United States.
She took to Twitter on Thursday to slam the implications, saying: “I have at all times been in full compliance with the immigration laws of this country.
— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) August 4, 2016
Nude photos from Trump’s third wife surfaced Sunday in the New York Post when she was a model in the mid-90s. Reports say Melania may have been in the country on a short term visa at the time — and was therefore not authorized to work.
Read: First Naked Lady: Nude Images of Melania Trump Surface: 'She's a Beautiful Woman'
In February, she told MSNBC: “I follow a law the way it’s supposed to be. I never thought to stay here without papers. I had [the] visa. I travel every few months back to the country, to Slovenia, to stamp the visa. I came back. I applied for the green card. I applied for the citizenship later on after many years of green card. So I went by system. I went by the law, and you should do that. It never crossed my mind to stay here without papers.”
A major component of Donald Trump’s campaign is his promise to erect a “massive” wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, blaming illegal immigrants for bringing drugs and criminal activity into America.
Watch: Photographer Who Took Melania Trump's Nude Images Call Them 'Art'
