Models and bottles: When Melania’s pal Paolo blew through D.C.

This is the story of what happened when a notorious New York City playboy not named DONALD TRUMP tried to replicate his act in Washington.

Few people are more intertwined with Donald and MELANIA TRUMP than PAOLO ZAMPOLLI. A onetime modeling agent, he represented Melania in her former career, then introduced her to her future husband at a party he hosted in 1998 at the Kit Kat Club. With a four-story townhouse in Union Square and a standing table at Cipriani restaurant in Manhattan, the 51-year-old Zampolli managed to become both a fixture on “Page Six” and an ambassador for the tiny island nation of Dominica to the U.N.

After Trump took office, Zampolli, one of Melania’s few close friends, spent multiple New Year’s Eves with the first lady and was a frequent visitor at the White House and Mar-a-Lago. In October 2020, he relocated from New York City to D.C. with much fanfare. A story in Page Six announcing the move noted that he would be bringing along a chef from Cipriani to cook at the $16 million mansion he rented on Foxhall Road.

But Zampolli’s high-flying, models-and-bottles lifestyle didn’t go over well with the tight-laced politicians and staffers with whom he sought to make connections.

He became known for his garish tastes and his affinity for entertaining “questionable folks,” as one attendee described them — lobbyists for disreputable industries and diplomats for countries with lackluster human rights records. Even the artwork on display caused offense: a photograph of TONY BLAIR scribbling on the Chilcot Report, a painting of BARACK OBAMA smoking, a photograph of GEORGE W. BUSH struggling with a Rubik’s Cube and multiple massive images of Trump.

That attendee and two others described the scene at Zampolli’s mansion — featuring a wine cellar, a sauna, a heated pool, a dance floor and crowds that skewed heavily toward older men and younger women — as too wild for the environs, especially during Covid-19.

But Zampolli told Playbook, “Every invite said social distancing is available. There’s a lot of room — the house was 14,000 square feet.” He added: “There were no [other] events, so there was no other place to go. People would come and bring other people. There would be five losers and one good one, and that was the concept. I was generous. I was feeding a lot of freeloaders.”

A FINAL FLEX BY MELANIA: Trump’s loss marked the beginning of the end for Zampolli’s stay in Washington. However, that wasn’t immediately apparent. In December, in one of her final acts as first lady, Melania persuaded her husband to appoint Zampolli to the prestigious Kennedy Center board.

Zampolli had big plans for the venerable institution, such as franchising it, setting up a PICASSO exhibit and using the rooftop for sports-related events. But so far, none of those things have happened. Instead, he carried on the way he lived in Manhattan, holding court five days per week at a standing table at Cafe Milano and…