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🧵Ivan Saul Cutler 6d • The Man Who Delivered Melania: Paolo Zampolli and the Modeling Pipeline Before Melania Trump was First Lady, she was a 26-year-old Slovenian model living in a cramped Manhattan apartment arranged by Paolo Zampolli - a modeling agent with a curious talent for placing young Eastern European women in the orbit of rich, older men. Melania shared the space with a fashion photographer. The rent wasn't her choice—it was docked from future modeling gigs. She worked on a tourist visa, not legally allowed to earn a dime. Her every move in America-where she lived, how she worked, whether she stayed-was managed by Zampolli's agency. That's not mentorship. That's control. What Zampolli built wasn't a modeling agency-it was a pipeline, channeling vulnerable women from post-Soviet collapse into sexualized labor, designer captivity, and green card romance. Melania wasn't trafficked in a van-she was trafficked in heels, through a front door held open by wealth and power.