“Melania will keep her hand on Barron’s future just as much going forward as she has throughout his early and current school years,” the insider said. “He is her world. She is proud of him, and she is the primary decision maker on Barron and his future.”

Amid his father’s 2024 presidential campaign, Barron continued to largely stay out of the spotlight. He declined an opportunity to serve as an at-large delegate for Florida at the Republican National Convention, citing “prior commitments” in a statement made by his mother, though he did attend his first campaign rally in support of his father in July. After Donald defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to win the presidential election, Barron also appeared on stage for his father’s victory speech, during which the president-elect expressed his gratitude for his children.

Here’s everything to know about Donald and Melania Trump’s son Barron.

Donald was surprised to find out Melania was expecting

In 2005, Donald and Melania discovered they were expecting their first child together about six months after their wedding. While looking back on the moment she told Donald she was pregnant, Melania admitted her husband was a bit taken aback by the news.

“He came home [one day last August], and I told him he’d be a daddy. And his reaction was … at first he needed to take it in. It was a real surprise. And then he was very happy,” she shared with PEOPLE.

Donald added, “I expected we were going to have children, so I wasn’t totally surprised. But I was surprised by the speed of it. It happened very quickly.”

He was born in March 2006

Melania gave birth to Barron on March 20, 2006. Donald chose not to be present in the delivery room, explaining he thought it would be “easier” for Melania if he wasn’t there. Melania later said that her eight hour labor was, in fact, “very, very easy.”

“Everyone’s perfect. She’s really happy and it’s really great,” Donald told PEOPLE following the birth.

Donald was the one to choose Barron’s name, as he had always liked it but hadn’t had the chance to use it for his other sons. Melania was on board — but at the last minute, Donald had second thoughts about the name.

“It’s a name I’ve always loved but I never had the courage to use. I gave the idea to Melania and then I was going to take it away at the very end and she said, ‘You can’t take it away! I’ve been calling him Barron while he’s been in my stomach and you just can’t take it away!’ ” Donald said on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

He attended school in New York, Maryland and Florida

Growing up, Barron attended numerous prestigious schools. While living in New York City, he was enrolled at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. After Donald began his presidential term in January 2017, Barron remained in N.Y.C., finishing out the school year.

During Barron’s final year at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School, he took his entire fifth-grade class on a trip to Washington.

A group of about 80 students joined Barron (along with teachers and Secret Service agents) on an excursion to the White House, where they met Barron’s father. The group also toured the nation’s capital and stayed overnight at a hotel before returning home.

Then in May 2017, it was announced that Barron would be attending St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland.

Tuition at St. Andrew’s cost the Trumps about $40,000 a year. Barron’s enrollment marked a departure from the precedent set by previous first families — including the Obamas, Bushes and Clintons — who sent their children to Sidwell Friends, a private Quaker school located in D.C. and Bethesda, Maryland.

Following the end of Donald’s presidential term in 2021, it was revealed that Barron would be attending the Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida, where he graduated with the class of 2024.

He was nervous about moving into the White House

When Donald was first elected president, he shared that Barron was hesitant about leaving his life in N.Y.C. and moving into the White House. He explained that the then 9-year-old loved New York and his school, and the move was a “whole change of life.”

Donald said, “He has a very good school in New York where he has a lot of friends. But I tell him if this happens, Daddy will help people, and can help children like him, and that makes him happy. He’s a young boy who is 9 years old and he is strong and smart and he gets it. He sees it.”

Former first daughters Chelsea Clinton and Jenna Bush Hager came to his defense

While his father was in office, Barron faced attacks online.

Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton came to his defense. Amid the online bullying, Chelsea tweeted on several occasions, asking others to give Barron the chance to grow up without so much criticism.

“It’s high time the media & everyone leave Barron Trump alone & let him have the private childhood he deserves,” Clinton wrote in response to a negative article about Barron.

Jenna Bush Hager, another former first daughter, also spoke out about how the attacks on Barron made her “mad” because “the truth is, obviously, Barron Trump didn’t ask his dad to run for president. It wasn’t his decision.”

He speaks both English and Slovenian

Barron is bilingual and can speak both English and Melania’s native Slovenian. As a little boy, Melania says Barron often called his grandmother and spoke to her exclusively in Slovenian. While Melania was a proponent of Barron speaking multiple languages, she noted that she’s on the same page as her husband as to what language Barron should be using in public.

“My opinion is that more languages you speak, better it is, but when you come to America, you speak English,” she told PEOPLE.

Melania is incredibly protective of him

Throughout Melania’s career as a model, she was known to keep to herself. Even during her time as First Lady, she primarily spent time with her family instead of friends. After Donald left office in 2021, sources told PEOPLE that Melania remained very private and kept a close eye on Barron.

“Melania’s friends are her family members,” a source shared in 2023. “Many Mar-a-Lago Club members and others know and see Melania. But they aren’t friends. They don’t get together and gab or socialize. She has always surrounded herself with family. She is a doting mother to Barron and very protective of him. This is nothing new.”

The insider added that Melania’s parents, who moved to the Trump family property in Mar-a-Lago, were “close to Barron” and “instrumental in his rearing.” Melania’s mother, Amalija Knavs, died in January 2024.

In March 2024, a social and political source told PEOPLE that “Melania’s main job is taking care of Barron.”

“Barron is shy and reserved, and she has been a good mother to him all of these years,” the source said, adding, “Melania is all about Barron and her family. She has always been family-oriented, and in addition to some of the charity work she has done, staying ahead of family issues is her priority.

Donald says Barron is 6 feet, 7 inches tall

According to comments Donald made while speaking at his presidential campaign headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, in January 2024, his teenage son is already towering over him at 6 feet, 7 inches. He attributes Barron’s height to him eating all of the food that his late grandmother, Melania’s mother Amalija Knavs, would make for him.

The Daily Mail reported that Donald called Barron a “special boy” during his speech, adding, “‘I said you’re gonna be a basketball player. He said, ‘well I like soccer dad, actually.’ I thought … at your height I like basketball better but you can’t talk them into everything.”

He attended his first campaign rally in July 2024

Barron joined his dad on the campaign trail in July 2024. While in Doral, Fla., Donald noted from the podium that it was his son’s first-ever rally.

“You’re pretty popular, he might be more popular than Don and Eric,” he said. “So Barron, it’s good to have you. [He’s] had such a nice, easy life. Now, it’s a little bit changed.”

He’s a student at New York University

On Sept. 4, 2024, NYU security officers confirmed to PEOPLE that Barron had arrived at the Manhattan college. He was spotted outside of the library, along with Secret Service agents.

In an interview with Fox News that same month, Melania said that it had been Barron’s idea to go to school in New York and live in the family’s tower in Manhattan.

“It was his decision to come here, that he wants to be in New York and study in New York and live in his home, and I respect that,” she said.

She went on to call her son an “incredible young man,” adding, “I’m very proud of what he grew up to. His strength. His intelligence. His knowledge, his kindness. It’s admirable.”

In December 2024, a source told PEOPLE that Barron is “popular with the ladies” on campus.

“He’s tall and handsome. A lot of people seem to think he’s pretty attractive — yes, even liberal people like him.”

Barron Trump, 18, Is Officially Entering the Political Arena with Highest-Profile Role to Date

Donald Trump’s youngest son, who has largely avoided the spotlight, was chosen to represent Florida as a delegate at the Republican National Convention in July

Barron Trump will have an official role at the 2024 Republican National Convention, stepping into the political spotlight that his older siblings have long enjoyed.

The 18-year-old son of Donald Trump was chosen along with several relatives as an at-large delegate to represent Florida at the convention, according to a delegate list first obtained by NBC News.

Barron, who will graduate from a private West Palm Beach high school on Friday, May 17, was 10 years old when his father became president. He was heavily shielded from the public during Donald’s term in office, and has maintained a low profile in Florida with his mother, Melania Trump, since leaving Washington, D.C., in 2021.

 

His status as a delegate marks his highest-profile political role to date, and signals that he may play a more visible role down the line in his family’s political endeavors.

Also selected as delegates in Florida were three of Trump’s older children — Don Jr., Eric and Tiffany — as well as Don Jr.’s fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Tiffany’s husband, Michael Boulos.

Former White House advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were notably absent from the delegate list (which falls in line with their vow to stay out of politics this time around) and Eric’s wife, Lara Trump, is playing a larger role in Republican politics this year as the newly elected co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

 

President Trump won Florida’s GOP primary in March, securing the state’s 125 Republican delegates.

Those newly elected delegates, including four of his children, will travel to Milwaukee in July for the Republican National Convention to cast their votes in support of the former president, a largely ceremonial move that solidifies his place as the party’s 2024 presidential nominee.