Is it possible for someone to be as outspoken as Donald Trump? His first wife seems dead-set
on answering that question, as she's remained a media fixture since their infamous 1989 split.
Let's fast-forward a few decades to catch up with Ivana Trump now and take a peek at her life today.
After her divorce from Donald was finalized in 1992, Ivana Trump set about building her own
business portfolio. She started a perfume and cosmetics company, a jewelry line,
and a clothing brand that was worth $50 million a year by 1997. The former Vice
President of Interior Design for the Trump Organization began buying her own properties
in her favorite spots around the world, and she's been living the jet-set life ever since.
Ivana has places in London, New York, Miami,
Palm Beach, and St. Tropez, a resort town on the French Riviera that's been
a playground for the rich and famous since the mid-1950s. St. Tropez has been, quote,
"a magical place" for Ivana since she visited with Donald as a newlywed. Ivana told the luxury
lifestyle site Helen Cummins that she would spend four months a year in the resort town, saying:
"I have the 'special key' that allows me to drive in spots forbidden to
tourists [...] I love the colors, warm weather and carefree freedom of it all."
Sadly, the south of France became off limits for Ivana and countless others in 2020. Her
globetrotting came to a grinding halt when the coronavirus pandemic took hold, forcing her to
hole up in the Hamptons instead. It was the first time she had vacationed there in over a decade.
Ivana found out about Donald Trump's affair with
Marla Maples in December 1989 when the model approached her
out of the blue with a startling question. In her memoir, Raising Trump, Ivana wrote:
"[She] said, 'I'm Marla and I love your husband. Do you?'
I said, 'Get lost, I love my husband.' It was unladylike, but I was in shock."
The story took up countless column inches and held the interest of the media for months,
but the business mogul went on to marry Maples and the tabloids got over it. Ivana would
eventually get over it, too - the exes buried the hatchet, and they remain close to this day.
In 2016, Donald's first wife revealed that she had been quietly advising him
from the sidelines since his entry into the political sphere, even giving Trump his,
quote, "You think it, I say it" catchphrase. In April 2016, Ivana told the New York Post,
"We speak before and after the appearances and he asks me what I thought."
The next year, Ivana boasted to Good Morning America about having a direct
line to the White House. She would also tell CBS Sunday Morning that
the president is still a big part of her life, revealing that they speak often.
"We speak to each other."
"How often?"
"Maybe once a week."
When news of Donald Trump Jr.'s impending divorce from his wife of over a decade broke in 2018,
his mother decided to chime in with her two cents. Using one of her preferred
methods of communication, the New York tabloids, Ivana revealed that she was,
quote, "very sad" about the split, which she had in fact known about for some time.
Additionally, Ivana was apparently the one who informed the president that his eldest son's wife,
Vanessa, was filing for divorce. According to Ivana, that was a risky move on Vanessa's
part. Donald Jr.'s mother predicted that he would bounce back in no time,
while the outlook for his ex could be pretty bleak. Ivana told Page Six:
"Donald Jr. is a good-looking guy [...] He is successful. He is not going to have
a problem to find a girl. Maybe Vanessa might have a little problem because she
has five kids [...] who is going to date and marry [a] woman who has five children?"
To their credit, the power couple refused to be pulled into a mud-slinging match,
despite Ivana's provocation. They finalized their divorce amicably at the end of 2018.
Does being Donald Trump's first wife make you the real first lady of the United States of America?
That's what Ivana said during a now infamous appearance on Good Morning America,
causing quite the stir in the process. The businesswoman revealed that the only reason
she doesn't call the president at the White House more often
is because his current wife, and official first lady, Melania Trump may be around.
"I don't want to cause any kind of jealousy or something like that because I'm
basically first Trump wife, okay. I'm first lady, okay?"
Ivana was laughing when she made these comments,
but Melania did not see the funny side. In response to the interview,
Melania released a statement via her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, making it
clear what she thought of Ivana's sensational assertions. Grisham wrote in the statement:
"Mrs. Trump has made the White House a home for [son] Barron and The President. She loves living
in Washington, D.C. and is honored by her role as First Lady of the United States. She plans to
use her title and role to help children, not sell books. There is clearly no substance to
this statement from an ex. Unfortunately only attention seeking and self-serving noise."
Yikes! Ivana later defended her comments on The Ray D'Arcy Show,
claiming that Melania, quote, "resents" the fact that she has three kids by her husband.
He may be the POTUS, but Ivana doesn't envy her powerful ex,
not in the slightest. When she appeared on Ireland's The Ray D'Arcy Show,
Ivana said that being the president is too much like hard work - and she
believes that Donald Trump sometimes feels the exact same way, saying on the show,
"You know he was in Trump Tower, and he would go to Mar-a-Lago, he would go to
play golf on Westchester, and things like that. Now from 8 o'clock in the morning to midnight,
he's working, working, working, and everybody shoves at him the problem of the country."
"I think he's missing... little bit of his old life."
According to Ivana, there's a chance that Donald may not have realized just how much is involved in
the running of a country, and is likely lamenting the lack of freedom the presidency affords him.
He's not able to enjoy his money as much as he used to, which is why Ivana believes that him
remaining in the Oval Office beyond 2020 could be a big mistake. In April 2018, she told Page Six,
"Donald is going to be 74,
73 for the next [election] and maybe he should just go and play golf and enjoy his fortune."
Ivana was Donald Trump's first wife, but he wasn't her first husband. She was married to
Austrian skier Alfred Winklmayr for a couple of years before she met the future president,
and there's been two more husbands in the years since their sensational split.
Ivana tied the knot with wealthy Italian businessman Riccardo Mazzucchelli in 1995,
but that also lasted for a short two years. In 2008, she married another Italian hunk.
She dated the almost two-and-a-half decades younger Rossano Rubicondi for six years before
making it official, but a matter of months after they wed, they were calling it quits.
At this point, divorce was pretty much her speciality. However, Ivana's love story with
Rubicondi wasn't quite done. They would later rekindle their romance, and were dating one
another as recently as 2019, when they amicably split for a second time. Ivana told Page Six,
"I don't want to get married again. I'm done. You get married because you want a family.
I have three kids and grandkids. I just want to be free and go
where I want to go with whoever I want. I want to be a free woman."
Ivana is now in double figures when it comes to grandchildren. Donald Jr. and his ex-wife
Vanessa have five kids together. Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner have three kids in total,
while Eric and his wife Lara have just two. Ivana has plenty of grandchildren to dote on,
but it probably won't surprise you to learn that she doesn't do any of the dirty work.
In a 2013 interview with OWN, Ivana had this to say about her grandkids,
"They call me 'glam-ma' or 'Ivana-ma,' for the
youngest ones [...] You play with them - after four hours I ship them right back.
No need to change the diapers. Been there, done that. So it works perfectly."
In a more recent interview with Good Morning Britain,
Ivana said that the large family she shares with the president
is usually the main topic of conversation when they have their little chats.
Donald Trump spoke disparagingly of immigrants during his 2016 election campaign, and his ex
ramped up the same rhetoric as he launched his repeat bid for the White House. When Ivana Trump
appeared on British daytime talk show Loose Women in 2020, she caused quite the uproar after going
on a rant about immigrants who come to America: "They don't dress, dress even American. You know,
they dress whatever they dress in and they don't get a job and they steal [...]"
Ivana's comments didn't go down well with panelist Jane Moore,
who accused the privileged Czech native of hypocrisy. Moore said to Ivana,
"What you've just said about migrants a lot of people would find quite
offensive. You're a migrant yourself - are you not shutting the door behind you?
Do you not understand some people have very desperate lives?"
Moore went on to call Ivana's words, quote, "inhumane," but the socialite stood her ground.
Insisting that there's no room for sentiment when it comes to border security, Ivana added:
"They have to go and apply for the visa properly, then they [can] come to America."
Ivana was spotted out and about in New York City with an old friend after her
controversial Loose Women appearance in 2020 - her cuddly little comfort dog,
Tiger. The teacup Yorkshire Terrier first made headlines back in 2014 when Ivana took
him to an Italian restaurant just around the corner from her residence on East 64th Street.
According to a fellow customer, who spoke anonymously to Page Six,
the socialite's tiny dog was causing quite a big scene. The diner explained to the tabloid,
"She even let the dog climb up on the table. I told her,
'No dogs allowed,' but she lied that hers was a service dog."
Ivana denied that she had made the whole thing up, telling the tabloid that Tiger
was in fact a fully certified comfort service dog. The restaurant clearly didn't ban Ivana
following the incident, because she and Tiger were back again in September 2020,
days after her much maligned Loose Women interview. According to reports,
Tiger was in the seat next to her with its paws right up on the table.
There's been talk about Donald Trump's eldest daughter being a potential future president,
and a lot of it has come from her mother.
Ivanka Trump has been working as a senior adviser to her dad for some time now,
and, according to Ivana, she's ideally placed to follow in his footsteps. During her controversial
2020 appearance on Loose Women, Ivana had this to say about Ivanka's possible presidential run:
"She's in the White House every day, you know? [...] I think she could be one day the first [...]
woman president, definitely. She's smart as hell, she's beautiful [...] How much more you can have?"
This wasn't the first time that Ivana floated the idea of Ivanka in the Oval Office.
She has made it perfectly clear that she has no desire to get into politics herself,
but the idea of her daughter making history as the first female president of the United States
has intrigued her for some time. In 2017's Raising Trump, Ivana wrote:
"First Lady? Holds no appeal for me personally. First Mother? That could work."
If this does come to pass, then Ivanka will have her ambitious
mom to thank. In her memoir, Women Who Work, Ivanka wrote this about her mother,
"It was my mother, unapologetically feminine in a male industry,
who first embodied and defined for me what it meant to be a multidimensional woman."
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