Washington, Aug 23 (IANS): Melania Trump, the wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, is preparing to take legal action against British daily The Daily Mail for an article about her past that she considers to be defamatory, her attorneys said on Monday.

"Mrs. Trump has placed several news organisations on notice of her legal claims against them, including Daily Mail among others, for making false and defamatory statements about her supposedly having been an 'escort' in the 1990s before she married the real estate magnate," attorney Charles Harder said in an e-mail sent to online daily Politico on Monday.

"All such statements are 100 per cent false, highly damaging to her reputation, and personally hurtful," Efe news quoted Harder as saying.

According to Harder, Trump's wife "understands that news media have certain leeway in a presidential campaign, but outright lying about her in this way exceeds all bounds of appropriate news reporting and human decency".

He referred to an article published on Aug 19 by The Daily Mail questioning the biography and the modelling career of Melania Trump, who is of Slovenian origin and has been married to the mogul since 2005.