Barron Trump prepares to stand tall (er): How Donald's 6ft 7ins Arsenal-loving 'mommy's boy' grew up shielded from White House glare by Melania - as 'kind-hearted' 18-year-old graduates from top Florida school

As Donald Trump's youngest child graduates from his £32,000 per year high school in Florida, he will begin a new chapter in his life away from the shielded upbringing he was afforded, mainly thanks to his mother, Melania's, wishes. 

In the world of his father's most fanatical followers, Barron Trump, 18, is seen as the future of the family's political aspirations. 

That's despite the fact Barron has never given an interview, isn't active on social media and has yet to speak publicly about anything. The scant information available publicly about him usually comes from his mom. 

However, the 6ft 7ins teenager will walk the stage on Friday at Oxbridge Academy and step into the limelight - even if his future moves remain shrouded in mystery. 

Melania proudly speaks about her hands on parenting style and described herself as being 'hands-on' while her former chief of staff Stephanie Grisham spoke glowingly about Barron calling him 'kind hearted' in an interview with MailOnline. 

'Of course she is worried and concerned about the legal issues [Donald Trump faces], but she has not done anything more to protect Barron now than she ever did. She has always put him first. She is a good mother,' a source close to Melania told People in 2023. 

Barron is the first boy to grow up in the White House since JFK Jr in 1963, he has lived through scandal after scandal – shielded, as best she could, by a highly protective mother

Episcopal Church of Bethesda by the sea in Palm beach where the funeral service for Amalia Knavs, Melania Trump's mother, was held 

It's long been known that Barron is football mad, shown here in an Arsenal kit in 2017 on the White House lawn, he was once on the books of DC United 

When her husband was sitting in the Oval Office, Melania insisted that Barron board Air Force One through the backstairs to keep him away from media glare.

This past January, Barron was pictured in media outlets across the world attending Melania's mother, Amalija Knavs', funeral in Florida. Barron speaks Slovenian and would regularly have phones calls his with his grandmother, sources say.  

He made a rare foray into the headlines earlier this month when the Florida branch of the Republican Party claimed it was confirmed that Barron would be one of their 41 delegates at the national convention in Milwaukee in July.

Melania's office quickly poured cold water on the reports, and told MailOnline that he would not attend due to a scheduling conflict. Trump however told Telemundo in an interview that he was 'all for' the idea. 

Barron was born in March 2006, just six months after his parents were married in a lavish ceremony that was attended by, among others, Bill and Hillary Clinton. 

Later, the Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, became an outspoken advocate of Melania's parenting style in keeping the media away from her son.  

Melania said that the pregnancy caught Trump by 'surprise' but also said that he was 'happy' about the news. 

'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', she told People Magazine. 

For a young man who has spent so much of his life kept fiercely out of the spotlight, Barron Trump made his TV debut at a shockingly young age. (Pictured: 10-months old with his parents in 2007).

He was just two months old when his proud parents allowed Gayle King to come and coo over him in the baroque splendor of their $100 million penthouse in Trump Tower. (Pictured: Aged 3 with his parents and half-sister Ivanka in 2009).

 It's during Barron's infancy that Trump is accused of bedding porn star Stormy Daniels. 

Among the gifts his family received was a solid gold buggy that featured a chandelier from chat show host Ellen DeGeneres. 

Barron was introduced to the world during an interview with Gayle King as part of The Oprah Winfrey Show in which Trump explained his son's unusual 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!"' Trump said.   

Baby Barron also appeared in a bizarre ad for The Apprentice, being clutched by Melania.  

He grew up largely on his own floor in Trump Tower along 5th Avenue in Manhattan. His mother said in 2013 that she lathered him in a caviar-based moisturiser. 

'It smells very, very fresh. I put it on him head to toe. He likes it,' she told ABC News. 

 His first schooling was in Manhattan, where he attended Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in the affluent Upper West Side neighborhood. 

Despite his height, Barron has assayed the popular American sport of basketball in favor of European football. 

We saw baby Barron's grand nursery, a corner room with sweeping views of Manhattan and stuffed full of huge soft toys, where The Donald borrowed his son from the nanny so he could hold him for the cameras. (Pictured: in Trump Tower in 2016).

The first boy to grow up in the White House since JFK Jr in 1963, he has lived through scandal after scandal - shielded, as best she could, by a highly protective mother. (Pictured: at Trump's 2017 inauguration).

 In 2017, he was pictured wearing an Arsenal kit as he dribbled a ball on the White House lawn after meeting with DC United plays including then strike Patrick Mullins.

'He was very knowledgeable about soccer, knew about DC United and was interested to know more,' Mullins told The Washington Post.  

In 2023, Trump confirmed that Barron 'loved' football in an interview with Piers Morgan.  

Barron, then 13, was on the books of DC United, where Wayne Rooney was seeing out his career. Rooney was invited to a Christmas Party at the White House during Trump's time in office. 

Barron also brought his fifth grade classmates on a tour of the White House where they met Trump. 

The Trumps broke from the tradition of the Clintons and Obamas in sending Barron to the £30,000-a-year St. Andrew's in Potomac, Maryland, rather than the Quaker-run Sidwell Friends in DC.  

In terms of his next move, it doesn't look like Barron is seeking a college soccer scholarship as he hasn't appeared on the listings for Oxbridge Academy's teams for the past few years. 

Little is known about Barron's time at school, but there was a rare sighting of him on the school's Instagram page on April 12 when he was spotted at the back of a photo taken at a Monte Carlo-themed prom for his fellow Class of 24 students. 

In January 2018, he was not yet 12 when the media was engulfed by porn star Stormy Daniels's bombshell claims that she had an affair with Donald just four months after Barron was born.

During his presidency, Trump's most ardent critics even resorted to criticizing the young boy as a means of attacking his father. Comedian Rosie O'Donnell shared a video in 2016 making wild and totally unfounded claims that Barron had autism.

 At one point, Trump suggested in an interview with Megyn Kelly that Barron would follow in his, and three of his children, Don Jr, Ivanka and Tiffany's, footsteps and attend the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. 

There has also been rumors that he will attend New York University in Manhattan, where he spent much of his youth before moving to the White House and then on to Mar-a-Lago in Florida with his parents on the outskirts of West Palm Beach. 

A source told People Magazine that wherever Barron winds up, Melania will likely be close by.  

Last week, Trump told a crowd in Mar-A-Lago: 'Right now, he’s doing a great job. He has great marks.'

'He’s going to be going to college soon. And we’re looking at some colleges that are different than they were two months ago.'

Trump received a dispensation from the judge in his porn star hush money case in New York in order to attend Barron's graduation. After the ceremony, Trump is going to Minnesota to attend a fundraiser for this campaign. 

'Barron’s a great student and he’s very proud of the fact he did so well and was looking forward for years to having his graduation with his mother and father there,' Trump said in April. 

Recently, his father told a Philadelphia-based radio station that Barron offers him political advice. 

'It's sort of funny. He'll tell me sometimes, "Dad, this is what you have to do",' Trump said. That revelation was greeted with joy on TruthSocial as it confirmed the belief that Barron will follow in his father's footsteps. 

Although Trump would boast in 2015 that 'I've always prided myself on being a good father', biographers say he agreed with Melania that if she had a child, he wouldn't be actively involved in their day-to-day upbringing. (Trump wasn't even in the delivery room, although he suggested 'Barron' as a name). 

While some claimed to see a strong resemblance between Donald and Barron, nicknamed 'Little Donald', when he was a baby, others now insist that in one crucial respect he's very different. (Pictured: in 2020 at the White House).

So much younger than his siblings that he was effectively an only child, Barron gets on best with Tiffany, say insiders. (Pictured: with his parents and half-sister Tiffany in 2017).

In Trump acolyte Mollie Hemingway's book on the 2020 presidential election, Rigged, she wrote that Barron was critical of his father's performance in a debate with Biden.

'People thought I was too belligerent. I will say my own son Barron said: "Dad, you were too tough. You didn't have to keep interrupting him"'. 

In a more critical look at Trump's political life, the highly controversial Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House, Michael Wolff alleged that Barron 'is effectively not all a part of [Trump's] life'.

Just this week, Trump got his son's age wrong, calling him 17, during an interview about the prospect of him being a Republican delegate this summer.  

Most of Trump's other children have been outspoken in their support of the MAGA movement. However his reported 'favorite child,' daughter, Ivanka, as well as her husband, Jared Kushner, have been notably absent from Trump's latest campaign. 

His son's, Eric and Don Jr., regularly appear in conservative media to further their dad's talking points.  

In April, comedian Vincent Oshana said in an interview that he met Barron during a visit to Trump's home. He called the teen 'witty, smart, hilarious' and said he was 'smart on politics' with a 'good head on his shoulders.' 

Oshana even said that Barron joked about his dad playing music too loud in their home. 'I'll be in my room and the house is shaking, like, my dad plays the music loud,' the conservative commentator quoted Barron as saying. 

Another Trump backer, Patrick Bet-David, was present at the same event and said Barron held court at dinner for 90 minutes regaling a group with stories. The Iranian-American businessman said Barron was 'sharp, funny, sarcastic, tough - not weak.' 

'There’s always been a weird little cult of personality around him,' journalist Mike Rothschild, who regularly reports on Trump's supporters, told Slate this month 

 'There’s always been a weird little cult of personality around him,' journalist Mike Rothschild, who regularly reports on Trump's supporters, told Slate this month. 

Rothschild said that there is a conspiracy theory involving Barron on TruthSocial, Trump's social media platform, that claims the teen is a 'time-traveler,' based on the fact he shares a name with a character in a series of children's books written in the 1890s. 

'A lot of fringe-dwelling MAGA people took these obscure books as proof that Trump’s presidency was some kind of time-travel experiment, or foreseen in the past,' Rothschild added. 

'The idea of him as the avenger who will make the Trump line permanent once he comes of age is a little more recent.'

In February, prominent right-wing X personality Vince Dao tweeted: 'I'm totally convinced Barron Trump will be the American Caesar. It's not a meme at this point.' 

Additionally, it's rare to see any mention of Barron without a reference to his towering 6-foot-7 frame, which sees him loom over his father and siblings, as well as his chiseled chin. 

These looks fit in well with many Trump supporters view of what their leaders should look like. 

At rallies, banners with Trump's face superimposed over Sylvester Stallone's impressive physique from the Rambo movies are prevalent. 

Whether or not Barron, follows his father and siblings into conservative politics, it seems likely that his mother will be close by.