What can Melania get out of divorce with Donald Trump?
US First Lady Melania Trump is said to be proceeding to divorce President Donald Trump.
Melania is "counting the minutes until he is out of office and she can divorce him," said a former Trump administration aide, reported the Daily Mail on Sunday.
Former Trump-aide Stephanie Wolkoff, who was appointed as senior advisor to US First Lady Melania Trump, claimed that the Trumps had separate bedrooms in the White House and that their marriage was "transactional".
Another ex-aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, who was a political aide to Donald Trump, has claimed the couple's 15-year marriage is over, according to the Mail on Sunday.
Back in 2016, there were reports Melania 'burst into tears' when Trump was first voted into the oval office, with one friend saying at the time: "She never expected him to win".
She also didn't move into the White House for five months, because Barron Trump 'needed to finish school'.
However, former aide Stephanie Wolkoff has claimed Melania was actually negotiating a post-nuptial agreement to give Barron an equal share of the Trump fortune.
Trump is a firm believer of prenups and if the way past wives Ivana Trump and Marla Maples reacted is any indication, Melania will likely contest the prenup. In the end, Ivana was awarded $14 million in cash, $350,000 in annual alimony, and child support payments of $300,000 each year for their three children. She also snagged their Greenwich, Connecticut, mansion and a Trump Plaza apartment.
Trump's prenup with his second wife, Marla Maples, was largely designed to avoid a messy public fight like the one he went through with his first divorce. After a brief battle, Maples settled for just $2 million.
Trump's divorce agreement with Maples stipulated that he would make $100,000 child support payments for his and Maples' young daughter, Tiffany, until she turned 21. It also said the payments would stop if she got a full-time job, enlisted in the military, or joined the Peace Corps.
As Trump and Melania's son Barron is only 13, any divorce agreement would have a portion focusing on the teenager's living arrangements while he's under 21. Deals would also be worked out to award custody to his parents and secure financial support resources for Barron while he's underage.
Vanity Fair reported that the confidentiality agreement signed by Maples dictated that she wouldn't publish "any diary, memoir, letter, story, photograph, interview, article, essay, account, or description or depiction of any kind whatsoever, whether fictionalized or not, concerning (or seeming to concern) the details of the parties' marriage."
Of any violation, it said: "Donald will suffer irreparable damage and injury in the event of any such breach."
Since she's been privy to more sensitive events than Trump's other wives, Melania likely wouldn't join the scores of his former aides who spoke out after leaving the administration.
Melania would likely be granted one of Trump's many real estate properties. Ivana was able to get a Trump Plaza apartment, so it's possible Melania might also be granted a luxury apartment. Jacqueline Newman, a managing partner with Berkman Bottger Newman & Rodd told Town & Country it's not uncommon for a wealthy spouse to purchase an apartment for the spouse with less money.
When it comes to personal property like jewelry, these items generally stay in that person's possession. So, for example, any jewelry given to Melania would likely be hers to keep. And what about money earned from her jewelry business? Without the actual agreement to review, it's hard to say what would happen to any businesses Melania starts after their marriage.
