Barron Trump’s stunning height change amazed everyone, even though he grew up right before our eyes. Seemingly overnight, he appeared at 6’1″ tall. Yet he had long been one of the tallest Trumps, surpassing Melania Trump and catching up to his father’s height at just 12 years old. In no time, he became the tallest of all five of Donald Trump’s children, who make up quite a large group. The second tallest is Eric Trump at 6’5″.

And he’s not happy about it. “I’m very mad at Barron because I was the tallest man in my family until he came along,” he joked on the podcast “First Class Fatherhood” in 2021. “My dad calls me the little boy now, and I’m 6’5”. Eric is apparently not alone. Donald himself inadvertently confirmed that he is jealous of Barron’s height. “I say, ‘Barron, I don’t want to take a picture next to you,'” he said on Logan Paul’s podcast “Impaulsive” in June 2024. For some who know him, this is no surprise.

According to journalist Michael Wolff, author of “Siege: Trump Under Fire,” height is one of the weapons Donald uses to intimidate those around him. “He’s jealous of everyone’s height. He never lets himself be photographed with anyone taller than him,” he said in a 2019 interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. Fortunately for him, Barron is likely fully grown. But his growth has been nothing short of staggering, having surpassed his tall parents at an early age.

Barron Trump seems to have hit his growth spurt around 2017. During the November 2016 election, he stood between Melania and Donald Trump at the New York Hilton Midtown, showing that he was several inches shorter than both of them. In August of the following year, he looked taller than Melania as he walked next to her in flats. But he was still slightly shorter than the then-president, though not by much. A year later, in November 2018, Barron stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his father, and was taller than his mother in high heels.

It wasn’t until 2019 that he seemed to surpass Donald. In the photo next to his parents on the South Lawn in November (above), Barron appeared to be a few inches taller than his father. In the months that followed, however, Barron seemed to experience another growth spurt. On the final day of the Republican National Convention in August 2020, Barron towered over his family members, including Melania, Donald, Tiffany Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as well as his fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle.

That means Barron was 11 when he surpassed Melania Trump, who is 6 feet tall. He was 12 when he reached Donald’s height, which is 6 feet 4 inches according to his doctor, or 6 feet 6 inches according to his driver’s license, and he became taller than him at 13. Barron’s growth is within the range of what is expected for boys, who grow the most between ages 12 and 15, KidsHealth noted.

Barron Trump is interested in sports, but the sports that require a certain height are not among those he cares about. Donald Trump, however, has tried. “He’s 6’1″ and I couldn’t get him to play basketball,” he said on the podcast “Impaulsive.” Instead, Donald’s youngest child is interested in soccer. When he told him that was the sport he wanted to play, his father was quick to remind him of his advantage. “I thought… with your height, I like basketball better, but you can’t talk her into everything,” he said at a rally in January 2024, according to the Daily Mail.

Donald is not the only one. After Barron surprised everyone with his height at Melania Trump’s mother’s funeral in January 2024, netizens took to social media to urge him to join the NBA. “Barron Trump is 17 years old and already 6’0, he’s taller than NBA players. Someone give this boy a basketball ASAP,” one wrote on X, previously Twitter.

Although Donald has disclosed his love of soccer and basketball, he is glad his son has shown no interest in football. Although he enjoys watching the sport, he would have tried harder to convince his son to stay away from it than he did with soccer. “I’ve heard NFL players say they wouldn’t let their sons play football,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” in 2019, citing concerns about brain injuries in the sport.