What it was like to photograph Melania Trump naked in a fashion shoot in the mid-1990s? Alexandre Alé de Basseville knows it all too well.
But the photographer was reminded of her New York City assignment after Trump defended her nude modeling work in a video released on “X” to promote her forthcoming memoir, “Melania,” from Skyhorse Publishing. Reached in Paris, de Basseville said she did not know when she last spoke to the former first lady and only learned of the media interest in her photos after people started messaging her on Wednesday.
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De Basseville, who first crossed paths with the single model known as Melania Knauss, wasn’t sure exactly when the photos were taken for Max magazine in the mid-1990s in a duplex studio with a loft at West 26th Street and Sixth Avenue. “They say 1996. It was a long time ago. We’re talking about a time that doesn’t exist anymore,” she said.
The New York Post reported that the attack took place in 1995.
De Basseville, who works as an “artist photographer,” said he was looking for a “charismatic” model to balance against fellow model Emma Eriksson, who had already been booked for the shoot. Metropolitan Models introduced him to Knauss after someone told him “I have to see this girl,” and she turned out to be “perfect” for the scenario he envisioned.
“I’m an old-school guy,” he said with a laugh. “I come from an art background, I paint and sculpt and I take classes at a dance studio in Rome. For me, art was Caravaggio. I always wanted to represent women [the artists] “In the 15th and 16th centuries, she had free will in terms of artistic vision and diversity in everything she said. My concern was to show the inner and outer beauty of a woman.”
As for what she thinks about having nude photos of a former first lady, de Basseville said, “When you have a first lady, when she’s as beautiful as she is, why is that any different than all these kings and queens who have been represented nude in art for centuries? What’s the difference? [that] and Alexander the Great [nearly] “On his naked horse? Who doesn’t love Michelangelo’s ‘David’? I think it might be hypocrisy or jealousy.”
Recalling the shoot with Trump, de Basseville said Trump “got along very well with the whole crew. Of course, there was Photoshop. There were people on set for lighting, makeup, hair and styling. He was really professional and very kind.”
Afterwards, Eriksson, who is the favourite of Thierry Mugler, had to fly out in a hurry to Paris, so Basseville and Trump had a drink in SoHo, as was the routine after the shoot. “We were talking about life and what we had to do [laughs] and stupid things. It was just like two friends hanging out after doing something emotionally powerful, just to have a good time. It was really nice,” de Basseville said.
Trump later did another nude photoshoot for the March 2000 issue of British GQ, curled up on a rug in Donald Trump’s private Boeing 727, wearing only jewelry and handcuffed to a leather briefcase. “Why do I proudly stand behind my nude modeling work? The more pressing question is: Why did the media choose to scrutinize my celebration of the human form in a fashion shoot?” Trump said in a 45-second video post on “X” on Wednesday.
Just as Trump’s life has been full of ups and downs, so has de Basseville’s, who has traveled the world, expanded his career into other mediums and previously served time in prison. Born Jarl Alexandre Alé de Basseville in Bordeaux in 1970, Basseville is a descendant of King Harald I of Norway. He became interested in contemporary art as a young man, inspired by working with Andy Warhol and studying art in Milan. He first painted leather garments after meeting fashion designer Claude Montana.
“She’s very proud of the photos and I’m so glad she got to see what I got to see. Her sister was in fashion too, so it’s great,” de Basseville said.
De Basseville said she approached the shoot like a sculptor working with models. “Photography is also like making a movie. It’s a bit like acting. Some aspects of it are not right, of course,” she said.
After 2000, he said, photography took two paths: the art path and the fashion path. “I was never on the fashion path. I was always on the artistic path,” de Basseville said.
Their lifelong goal is AIDS awareness, which has led in part to the loss of loved ones to the disease, and women’s rights. “It’s completely stupid that we’re still fighting for women’s rights in 2024,” she said after all these friends, girls and models told me their stories [of mistreatment including ones] “About Harvey Weinstein, about all these guys I knew, I was dead. I couldn’t even believe it. I still can’t believe it. I’ve always fought for two things in my life, AIDS and women’s rights.”
The photographer has also faced legal trouble. In 2017, de Basseville was sentenced to 10 years in prison, serving two years, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to distribute MDMA, more commonly known as “ecstasy.”
During a two-year undercover investigation conducted by the Drug Enforcement Agent, de Basseville and his accomplice Bruno Cavelier d’Esclavelles conspired with undercover agents posing as drug traffickers to launder more than $20 million in drug proceeds and import and distribute more than 500 ecstasy pills.
“It was an experience. I met a lot of people. I learned a lot. A lot of people are desperate. Prison is a dangerous place. There are really dangerous people who are there to do drugs, to kill people and so on,” he said when asked about his prison sentence.
De Basseville, who is often on the air, said he always learns from his experiences and gains knowledge for art and life. “Caravaggio was my master — no matter what. He and other artists were in prison. No matter.”
De Basseville, who lives in Paris, does a lot of painting, photography and design work with his architect wife Egla Harxhi. The photographer said their six-year-old son Luxifer de Basseville often paints and dabbles in art with him. “I continue to work hard every day. I’m always trying to go up, up, up, to improve myself.”
The primary disadvantage of social networking is that many people judge others in a split second, says de Basseville. She prefers to read the philosophy of Plato and Hannah Arendt. Basseville, who has a genetic disorder that includes epilepsy and Asperger syndrome, began reading extensively as a child because she could not go to school. “So I didn’t know much about life, and I was never jealous,” she says. “Sometimes things that are normal for people are not normal for me. That’s because they’re things I don’t think about. I don’t care what society is like today. If everyone says, ‘Everyone lives like this, so I have to live like this,’ I don’t care.”
“I prefer to live my dream, which is maybe more artistic in a way. That’s the way it is,” De Basseville added.
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