Former and future first lady Melania Trump has long been an exceptionally private person who only infrequently sits for interviews with journalists, which has led to ample rumors and speculation about her as the media attempts to fill in the blanks about her life as the wife of President-elect Donald Trump.

Melania's private nature and quiet persona have also resulted in media assumptions that she is "shy," and Trump once tried to set the record straight by revealing that she is not "shy" but merely "selective" about who she talks to, according to the Inquisitr.

Unfortunately, as happens so often with her husband, the media has largely ignored what Melania has had to say about herself and instead continued to perpetuate and pursue its own manufactured narratives about her, regardless of how inaccurate they may be.

The media's misconceptions about her

During the 2016 election, Melania Trump sat for an interview with a reporter for DuJour magazine, and some of her responses eight years ago could easily be applied to the current day.

Asked what was the biggest media misconception about her, Melania replied that it was that she is a "shy" person, and said, "I’m not shy. I know what I want, and I’m selective."

She also pushed back against the media supposition that her typical silence in public means she lacks intelligence, or that her marriage is some sort of arranged "Faustian bargain" in which she is unhappy, and said, "To be married to my husband, to someone successful as he is, he needs somebody who will tell him the truth. Somebody smart, you know. It’s not just like I’m there and I’m just doing things for him."

Supporting her husband's campaigns

Melania also revealed in that 2016 interview that just because she isn't always visible on the campaign trial doesn't mean she isn't supportive of her husband's efforts to be president, as she told her interviewer, "People say I’m not on the campaign, [but] I’m very involved from home."

"I give a lot of advice to my husband and tell him how it is and how I see it. I’m not backing off. I tell him the truth," she explained. "After a speech, the kids are calling me -- Ivanka, [his] sons -- saying, 'Call dad and tell him this and that. He’s listening to you.' They know I would talk to him and put him in the right direction. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn’t. He will decide what he does."

The then-future first lady also recalled her conversation with the future president when he first broached the idea of running for the presidency, and noted that before his candidacy was announced, "I said to him, 'You really need to think, because our family life will change.' The three of us will change," referring to them and their son Barron.

"I know what it takes, traveling and all that stuff. I told him if he really wanted to do that I would support him 100 percent," she added. "But I would also be a mom first, I would be with our son, I would be home. Our son needs parents, and I don’t want somebody other than me taking care of him. We made that decision. It’s a big decision [to run], and a selfless decision. To go into that is very selfless because of what we’re going through."

Melania also addressed the intense hatred aimed at her husband and said, "We know the truth. He’s not Hitler. He wants to help America. He wants to unite people. They think he doesn’t but he does." Citing the example of Trump's proposed temporary ban on Muslim migrants, she added, "Maybe he needs to say it in a softer way. He doesn’t go after religions. He feels like we need to know who’s coming to this country. If not, we don’t have a country. That’s how he feels. We see how he is, and he wants to unite the country and bring people together and bring jobs back."

Barron is still her first priority

Eight years later from that interview, it appears very little has changed, as Melania Trump continued to be a rare sight on the campaign trail and has made it clear that while she supports her husband's political efforts, caring for their son will always be her top priority, even more so than what comes with the presidency.

As in 2017, when she delayed moving into the White House until after Barron had finished his school year in New York, CNN reported that Melania is unlikely to relocate to Washington D.C. right away, if at all over the next four years, but rather will stick close to Barron as he attends New York University and will split her time between Trump Tower in NYC, the Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida, and the White House for events that require the first lady's attendance.

In a Fox News interview before the election, she further revealed, "I’m not anxious because this time is different. I have much more experience and much more knowledge. I was in the White House before. When you go in, you know exactly what to expect."