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Melania Trump criticizes the media for their interest in her former career as a nude model in her latest video promoting her new memoir Melania.

“Why do I proudly stand behind my work as a nude model?” asks the former First Lady and wife of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (54) in the video posted on X and Instagram.

“The more pressing question is why the media chose to scrutinize my glorification of the human form in a fashion photo shoot?”

Going through some examples of nude figures from classical paintings and sculptures, including works by Cezanne and Michelangelo, she continues: “Are we no longer able to appreciate the beauty of the human body?

“Throughout history, master artists have venerated the human form, evoking deep emotion and admiration.

“We should honor our bodies and maintain the timeless tradition of using art as a powerful means of self-expression.”

Melania Knavs originally from Novo Mesto, Slovenia, and began modeling in Paris and Milan at the age of 16.

There she met businessman Paolo Zampolli, who brought her to New York City for the first time in 1996 and introduced her to her future husband Donald Trump two years later.

Trump signed her to his agency Trump Model Management in 1999, when the two were still together, and in 2000 she appeared nude in British GQposes on board the luxury real estate magnate’s private jet.

The images are by French photographer Antoine Verglas, who told ABC News during the 2016 presidential campaign that he had turned down offers worth “tens of thousands of dollars” to license his images to other magazines.

He said the model insisted the pictures did not show “full nudity” and recalled: “Melania was a very private person. She was definitely not someone you saw in nightclubs or going out. Quite down to earth, very nice, very warm.”

Also during this campaign The New York Post discovered an earlier series of nude photos for which Melania had posed and which appeared in the January 1996 issue of the French men’s magazine Maxwhich the tabloid newspaper republished under the headlines “The Ogle Office” and “Ménage a Trump”.

Jarl Ale Alexandre de Basseville, the photographer behind these pictures, said The publisher: “I think it is important to show the beauty and freedom of women and I am very proud of these images because they celebrate Melania’s beauty.”

Trump himself said at the time about his wife’s previous work: “Melania was one of the most successful models and did many photo shoots, including for covers and major magazines.

“This was a picture taken for a European magazine before I knew Melania. In Europe, such pictures are very fashionable and common.”

Author Kate Bennett wrote in her 2019 biography Free, Melania Melania herself refused to believe that her husband had anything to do with passing the pictures on to the tabloid newspaper and instead suspected Republican agent Roger Stone.

The new video is Melania’s latest to promote her upcoming hardcover book, which is currently available for pre-order on her website. The standard copy costs $40, a signed copy costs $75, and a “Collector’s Edition,” which comes with additional signed photos and a “digital collectible,” costs $250.

In other trailers, she attacks the FBI for its raid on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, searching for boxes of classified documents, recalls the birth of her son Barron Trump, denounces alleged attempts to “silence” her husband, and suggests that a conspiracy may have been at play in the first assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

She has not yet commented on the recent assassination attempt on her husband, which took place on Sunday at his golf course in Florida.