Rising from humble roots to become a Manhattan socialite, and later a businesswoman, Ivana Trump
has become a star in her own right. While she's most well-known as Donald Trump's first ex-wife,
Ivana certainly wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth.
She grew up in the former Czechoslovakia , and while the country was under Soviet control,
her family enjoyed only the bare necessities. Her mom, Marie, recalled to Newsweek,
"Ivana didn't want to stay here. She was always ambitious, and her father treated her like a boy."
Ivana managed to develop a talent in skiing, which allowed her to travel and ultimately leave
her country. She married an Austrian skier, but the two split shortly after. Luckily,
Ivana was able to obtain an Austrian passport and make her way to Canada, and then New York in 1976.
It was there that Ivana met Donald Trump during a night out with friends,
when he spotted her in a crowded restaurant. She told the New York Post,
"[There's] this tall blond guy with blue eyes. He said, 'I'm Donald Trump and I see you're looking
for a table. I can help you.' I [looked] at my friends and said, 'The good news is,
we're going to get a table real fast. The bad news is, this guy is going to be sitting with us.'"
"Donald was calling me every day and saying, 'Ivana if you're not going to marry me,
you're going to ruin your life.'"
The pair were married less than a year later. While Ivana didn't necessarily have to work,
she wasn't the type to be a stay-at-home mom. In addition to raising three kids,
she was also the vice president of interior design for Trump properties and later became
president of Trump's Castle casino resort and the Plaza Hotel. Although their marriage didn't last,
she remains grateful for the opportunities it brought her, telling the outlet,
"[Donald] gave me the chance. I came [to America] and I was a poor person.
I had a sense of style so he put me in charge of interior design of the Grand Hyatt Hotel. I was
seven months pregnant and going up the steps, making sure everything was on the schedule."
"There's not a lot of disagreement because ultimately Ivana does
exactly what I tell her to do. […]
Male chauvinist."
The couple divorced in 1990 after 13 years together,
and Ivana cashed out with a reported $25 million settlement, according to Inside
Edition. Following the split, she graced the cover of Vogue and had designers begging her
to wear their clothes. She was the official "It" girl of the moment, and leveraged her
fame by starting several businesses and writing a few books. She told the L.A. Times in 1992,
"It's a European tradition. We always look up to the man. But this is old times. Now
what I believe is that I'm definitely equal. I'm not going to let [a] man domineer me,
and if any man is around like that, I don't stay around. Who needs it?"
"Don't get mad, get everything."
Although Ivana doesn't need a man, she definitely enjoys the company. And after being married
four times, she knows exactly what she wants. She explained to the New York Post,
"I'm not getting married again. But I like companions. The most important for me is
honesty, good humor — not necessarily a millionaire. I don't need [money]."
While Ivana has proven her worth when it comes to business,
her hardest job and greatest pleasure has been being a mother to her three children — Donald Jr.,
Ivanka and Eric. She wrote in her 2017 memoir, Raising Trump,
"I believe the credit for raising such great kids belongs to me. I was in charge of raising
our children before our divorce, and I had sole custody of them after the split. I made
the decisions about their education, activities, travel, child care, and allowances. When each one
finished college, I said to my ex-husband, 'Here is the finished product. Now it's your turn.'"
As for how she feels about being a grandmother these days, she told Oprah,
"After three, four hours, I ship them right back,
don't need to change the diapers. Been there, done that."
Although Ivana and Donald weren't exactly partners in co-parenting,
they have arrived at a more compatible place today. In fact, the Donald even
took a couple of his ex-wife's tips, including cultivating a Twitter presence.
"He's still asking me for advice. Yes."
Ivana told CBS,
"I said, 'I think you should tweet.' It's a new way, a new technology. And
if you want to get your words across rightly […] this is how you get your message out."
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