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Melania Trump’s mom, Amalija Knavs, dead at age 78: ‘My beloved mother’

Amalija Knavs, the mother of former first lady Melania Trump, has died at the age of 78.

“It is with deep sadness that I announce the passing of my beloved mother, Amalija,” Trump wrote on X Tuesday.


“Amalija Knavs was a strong woman who always carried herself with grace, warmth, and dignity.  She was entirely devoted to her husband, daughters, grandson, and son-in-law. We will miss her beyond measure and continue to honor and love her legacy.”


Trump did not disclose a cause of death, but Knavs had been sick for some time.


Former President Donald Trump remembered his mother-in-law in a statement on his social media platform Truth Social Tuesday night.


“This is a very sad night for the entire Trump family!!!” he said. “Melania’s great and beautiful mother, Amalija, has just gone to a beautiful place in the sky. She was an incredible woman, and will be missed far beyond words!”


Melania Trump skipped her family’s annual Christmas photo — featuring her husband and three of his five children — to be at Knavs’ side in the hospital, insiders told The Post last month.

Despite his wife’s illness, Knavs’ husband and Melania Trump’s father, Viktor, 79, was spotted smiling in the snapshot.


Melania Trump and her Slovenian mother were incredibly close, according to her former senior aide, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.


“Melania has always taken care of her parents. I pray for Amalija,” the “Melania and Me” author told The Post last month.


The Knavses officially became US citizens in 2018, two years into their son-in-law’s presidency.


The green cards they received in the months leading up to their oaths raised questions about whether they benefited from a family reunification process that Donald Trump slammed at the time as “chain migration.”


They largely stayed out of the spotlight and spent the past few years living in Mar-a-Lago.

The pair had raised their daughter in the rural industrial town of Sevnica while Slovenia was under Communist rule.


Amalija Knavs worked in a textile factory, while Viktor was a car dealer.


The 53-year-old former first lady, born Melanija, changed her name to Melania Knauss when she started modeling.


She settled in New York in 1996, met then-businessman Donald Trump two years later and became his third wife in 2005.

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