Viktor and Amalija Knavs: Melania Trump’s parents who became U.S. citizens in 2018

Melania Trump’s parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, are Slovenian natives who moved to the U.S. after her 2005 marriage and became U.S. citizens in August 2018 in a private New York ceremony; Amalija died on Jan. 9, 2024. The couple met in Slovenia in 1966, according to GQ, and raised two daughters, Ines (born 1968) and Melania (born 1970), in the town of Sevnica and in Ljubljana.

Viktor worked as a chauffeur and later as a traveling car salesman and shop owner, while Amalija worked as a patternmaker at the state textile factory Jutranjka from 1964 until her retirement in 1997, per The New York Times and The New Yorker. Amalija’s sewing work and role at the factory helped introduce Melania to fashion and modeling; a 2019 book by Betty Boyd Caroli says Amalija “laid the foundation” for Melania’s future in the industry.

Melania has described her father and her husband as both “hardworking,” a comparison she made to GQ, and Donald Trump has called Viktor “pretty successful over there,” in remarks to The New York Times. After Melania’s marriage to Donald Trump, Viktor and Amalija moved to the U.S. in the early 2000s to help raise their grandson, Barron.

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