‘I’m going to Africa. I’m going to change the name of Kilimanjaro to Mount Trump,” Paolo Zampolli declares in Washington on Friday afternoon.
President Trump’s envoy for special partnerships is about to set off on his latest business trip and has the 19,341ft African mountain in his sights. “Actually I was talking to the minister of Tanzania,” Zampolli continues. “I said I’m coming but I’m changing the name.”
The 56-year-old Italian-American businessman has a relationship with Trump that dates back several decades. The former modelling agent and close Trump ally says he introduced the president to the current first lady, then Melania Knauss, in 1998. It is this connection that has catapulted Zampolli into the limelight, as he finds himself in the news for his personal life.
Last month, The New York Times reported that he had asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain his Brazilian former partner and the mother of his child, Amanda Ungaro. Since then, an account appearing to be Ungaro’s has suggested she had compromising material on Zampolli.
There has been speculation that she could give an interview discussing her experiences with Epstein and Melania.This month, Melania held a press conference declaring that Jeffrey Epstein had not introduced her to her husband, hitting out against “baseless lies” and “false smears”. Zampolli is offering to testify to that in Congress.
There is no evidence that Mrs Trump’s speech had anything to do with Ungaro.
“[Melaniais] a great mother, they have a terrific son,” Zampolli says. “She’s our marvellous first lady. It’s why it’s very disgusting she [Ungaro] sends messages on the internet to get attention claiming friendship and association that she clearly does not have. You don’t say that to a first lady.”
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Zampolli has previously said little in public about their connections but now wants to share his version of events.
He says he met Melania when she was a 24-year-old model. Zapolli was running the modelling agency that brought her to the United States and was already a friend of Trump.
They worked together and hung out socially and Melania became friends with his Hungarian girlfriend. They would go to the movies and swim together. He recalls the young Melania cooking “boring” vegetables with his girlfriend at the time, while he would eat at Cipriani’s, an upmarket Italian restaurant nearby. “You know that models have to have some kind of a diet,” he says.
“We became friends, stayed friends. I introduced them [the Trumps],” he recalls. This was at a party he was hosting at the Kit Kat Club during New York fashion week. “A week later she came to my house. I had a party for the designer Roberto Cavalli and they came together.”
