Ivana Trump
Ivana Trump
She died in her home in New York City, Trump said in the post on Truth Social
Ivana Trump, Donald Trump’s first wife, has died at age 73, the family announced Thursday.
She died at her home in New York City, the former president said in a post on Truth Social. The Trump family’s statement called her an “incredible woman.”
Our mother was an incredible woman — a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend. Ivana Trump was a survivor,” the statement said. “She fled from communism and embraced this country. She taught her children about grit and toughness, compassion and determination. She will be dearly missed by her mother, her three children and ten grandchildren.”
She grew up in the former Czechoslovakia under communist rule and left in the 1970s. She married her second husband, Trump, in 1977.
The couple had three children together and divorced in 1992 after 15 years of marriage. The Czech-born businesswoman and former model held several roles across the Trump family businesses, including serving as the former vice president of interior design for the Trump Organization. Her construction and design work spanned Trump Tower, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City and the Grand Hyatt Hotel. And she managed Trump’s prized Plaza Hotel property.
“She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life,” Donald Trump said in his post. “Her pride and joy were her three children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. She was so proud of them, as we were all so proud of her. Rest In Peace, Ivana!”
Ivana Trump has been described as a “charismatic workaholic” and a “career woman” — working alongside her then-husband as they built the Trump empire. She took her business skills well beyond the Trump family organization, developing her own fashion and beauty lines. She also invested in real estate both in the U.S. and Europe, and authored multiple books.
Both Trumps were hot topics in the media in the 1980s and beyond as the power couple’s wealth and role in New York’s social scene ballooned. They also had a messy and public divorce, spurred in part by Donald Trump’s affair with Marla Maples, whom he later married.
Despite the falling out, the two were on good terms in recent years, talking roughly once a week, Ivana Trump wrote in her 2017 memoir.
She also advised her ex-husband while he was on the campaign trail, she told the New York Post in 2016, offering Trump tips and critiques.
“We speak before and after the appearances and he asks me what I thought,” she told the New York Post. She would tell Trump to “be more calm” and said she coined the motto “You think it, I say it.”
Ivana Trump, the first wife of former President Donald Trump, has died at the age of 73, the Trump family confirmed in a statement.
In a statement posted to Truth Social, Donald Trump called his first wife "a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life."
Ivana's son Eric Trump commemorated his mother in a post on Instagram.
"Our mother was an incredible woman — a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend," Eric Trump wrote. "She fled from communism and embraced this country. She taught her children about grit and toughness, compassion and determination."
The New York Police Department said in a statement that police found Ivana Trump unresponsive at the scene and Emergency Medical Services pronounced her dead. There were no signs of foul play and the city's medical examiner will determine a cause of death.
Ivana Trump grew up in Gottwaldov, Czechoslovakia, south of Prague, according to a biography on the site of talent agency CMG Worldwide. She moved to Canada in the 1970s and worked as a ski instructor before beginning a modeling career.
Marriage to Donald Trump
In 1976, she met Donald Trump while on a work trip to New York. The couple married in 1977, according to the biography.
Her first son, Donald Trump Jr., was born the same year, followed by daughter Ivanka in 1981 and son Eric in 1984.
Ivana and Donald were frequently tabloid fodder and actively cultivated an aura of celebrity around their marriage.
Ivana Trump worked as the vice president of interior design for the Trump Organization. Her design work included Trump Tower, and she also served as the chief executive officer of some Trump hotel properties.
The couple's crumbling marriage was splashed across tabloid covers and they ultimately divorced in 1992.
Ivana Trump accused her husband of ripping out her hair of raping her during their marriage, an incident described in the 1993 book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald Trump, before she walked back the allegation in a statement given just prior to the book's printing.
"[O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage," she said. "As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a 'rape,' but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense."
Donald Trump described the claim as "obviously false."
After the divorce, she remained in the limelight, capitalizing on her fame by appearing in advertisements for national brands and launching a cosmetics company, Ivana Haute Couture.
She stirred up controversy after Trump's election to the White House, referring to herself as the "first lady" in an interview with ABC News.
"I have the direct number to White House, but I don't want to call him there because Melania is there and I don't want to cause any kind of jealousy because I am basically first Trump wife," she said. "I am first lady. "
Ivana Trump is survived by her three adult children, Donald, Ivanka and Eric, as well as several grandchildren.
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