First Lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump spend "little to no time together," a longtime friend of the president told The Washington Post, and she rarely visits the West Wing.

The president and his wife have reportedly established extremely independent schedules and rarely interact, even during their free time.

Melania has begun to play more of a public role in 2018 but rumors still swirl about the nature of her relationship with the president.

First Lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump spend "little to no time together," a longtime friend of the president told The Washington Post, and she rarely visits the West Wing.

The president and his wife have reportedly established extremely independent schedules and rarely interact, even during their free time. The gulf between them has apparently grown amid the ongoing scandals regarding the president's alleged affairs with former porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. Melania has not addressed these affairs publicly.

But Melania's spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, shot down the notion the first lady doesn't spend time with the president.

"Aside from the president's solo trips, the family spends most evenings together," Grisham told The Post.

Grisham said Melania is primarily focused on being a mom, a wife and the first lady. "The rest is just noise," she added.

The first lady's spokeswoman also dismissed rumors Melania doesn't actually live at the White House and instead typically stays in a house with her parents near her son's school in Maryland.

"It's 1,000 percent false," Grisham said. "We laugh at it all the time."

First lady Melania Trump looks over at U.S. President Donald Trump as they wait at the West Wing door to welcome French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 23, 2018. Reuters/Carlos Barria

Melania has perhaps been one of the most private first ladies in recent memory and didn't even live in the White House for the first six months of her husband's tenure. She's begun to play more of a public role in 2018, but rumors still swirl about the nature of her relationship with the president.

Many have looked to Melania's body language when she's with the president as a sign she's unhappy. Melania has been seen swatting the president's hand away on several occasions, for example. But a longtime friend of the first lady, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, told The Post people are reading into such things too much.

"[Melania] is a dignified, private person, and she'll deal with her personal life in private and it’s no one's business," Wolkoff said. "They are not that couple that holds hands just because; she is old-world European and it's not who she is."

Whatever the status of Melania and Trump's relationship truly is, there's no denying they represent a radical departure from the historic norms of the first couple. Trump's ex-wives attended his inauguration, for example, and Melania is only the second first lady in history to have been born outside of the US.