“I gave Melania the benefit of the doubt that she was my friend, she was different than Donald was, she was different than the other Trump children. And now? Oh a Trump is a Trump is a Trump,” Stephanie Winston Wolkoff told “GMA.”
The first lady’s former best friend and tell-all author Stephanie Winston Wolkoff says she gave Melania Trump the benefit of the doubt that she was different from the Trump family, but in an interview with “Good Morning America” Monday, she said that's no longer the case.
In an interview chock full of gossip, insight, and emotion, the author of "Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady," said the Trump family working inside the White House, especially first daughter Ivanka, are “snakes.”
“Oh, a Trump is a Trump is a Trump,” Wolkoff told “GMA.”
The author recalled how Melania Trump reacted to that now-infamous “Access Hollywood” tape leak from 2016, where Donald Trump was caught on open mic saying he grabs women by their private parts.
“She reached out to me to have lunch. Now, if it were any other human being or if any other of my friends, I would have expected to see them in tears. She was smiling. It was if nothing happened,” Winston Wolkoff said.
She says her friendship with Melania started when the first lady was an aspiring model in New York City. After marrying Donald Trump in 2005, she says Melania lived like a queen at Trump Tower on Manhattan’s tony Fifth Avenue. It was a fairy tale existence for the immigrant from Slovenia. Trump’s third wife would spend her days in a bathrobe and also workout, according to Winston Wolkoff.
The author says she was deeply involved in the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2017. The inauguration, which cost over $104 million, was the most expensive in American history. It was then that the social media movement of “Free Melania” began, after the first lady was seen allegedly scowling at the president. However, Wolkoff claims that was not the case.
“Barron had accidentally kicked her ankle and in that second, she was jabbed and it hurt so it was a look of pain, it wasn't a look of disgust," she said.
The first lady’s chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, is denouncing the book, calling it a “bizarre twist of the truth” by someone who “overstated their friendship” with the first lady.
“Anybody who secretly tapes their self-described best friend is, by definition, dishonest," Grisham said.
Winston Wolkoff said she wouldn't comment on if there was audio of her conversations with the first lady, but told GMA, "I can back up everything that's in the book 100% ... and Donald and Melania know that."
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