ong before she became the First Lady, Melania Trump was just a young woman from a small town in Slovenia chasing her modeling dreams. She eventually made it big in the U.S., met Donald Trump, and the rest is history. But according to her ex-boyfriend from back home, her path could have looked a whole lot different.
In the ‘90s, a teenage Melania left Slovenia behind and headed to New York City. She grew up in modest surroundings in Sevnica, where she discovered her love for fashion and modeling early on. That’s also where she had her first serious romance—with a guy named Jure Zorcic.
Jure recently opened up to ABC News about their time together, and his stories paint a pretty romantic picture. He says they met like something out of a rom-com: He was zooming by on his motorbike, spotted her walking, and was instantly smitten. “I was blown away by how beautiful she was,” he remembered. “She dressed so elegantly, carried herself with real class. Tall, with this long hair half-covering her face—you could barely see her eyes. Total style icon!”
Her ex says America was never part of the plan
They hit it off right away, grabbing coffee and chatting. Jure insists Melania wasn’t your average Slovenian girl—she had big ambitions. But here’s the kicker: He claims she had zero interest in moving to the States back then. “She dreamed of living abroad, sure, but in Europe—like Italy or France, immersed in the fashion world,” he said. The idea of America? “That was nowhere on our radar.”
She did work in Paris and Milan first, building her portfolio. When she finally told Jure about the New York gig, he was caught off guard. “She said it was for a hair care campaign—that’s what took her there,” he recalled.
They crossed paths again in 2000, but things felt different. Jure was shocked when she switched to English mid-conversation instead of their native Slovenian. “I teased her, ‘Have you forgotten you’re Slovenian?’” he laughed. And get this: “No one back then could’ve imagined she’d end up living the high life on Fifth Avenue in Trump Tower—not even her!”