Trump confirmed his ex-wife’s death in a post on his Truth Social platform, writing: “It is with great sadness that I inform all those who loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York. City of York.” The former president described her as “a wonderful, beautiful and amazing woman, who lived a wonderful and inspiring life” and said her “pride and joy were the trio of children she had with former real estate mogul: Donald Trump Jr , Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump. “She was so proud of them, as we all were so proud of her,” he wrote. “Rest in peace, Ivana!” In a statement, Mrs Trump’s children announced the death of their “beloved mother” with “deep sadness”. “Our mother was an incredible woman – a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty and a caring mother and friend,” they wrote, adding that she was “a survivor” who “fled communism and was embraced by this country “. “She taught her children grit and toughness, compassion and determination. She will be greatly missed by her mother, three children and ten grandchildren,” they wrote. Born Ivana Zelníčková in 1949 in what was then Czechoslovakia, she left the then-communist country in 1971 after marrying an Austrian ski instructor, whom she divorced a year later after receiving Austrian citizenship, eventually arriving in California, then New York, where she earned her living as a model. She met the future president in 1976 in New York, and the couple married in April 1977. Their first child, Donald Trump Jr., was born just over eight months later. Her daughter, whose full name is also Ivana Trump (Ivanka is a diminutive form of the name, literally “little Ivana”), was born in 1981, with their third child, Eric Trump, three years later. The couple were a mainstay of New York pop culture in the 1980s, but by the end of the decade they would split after his relationship with his future second wife, Marla Maples, went public. The divorce was controversial and provided tabloid headlines for months. It was during these divorce proceedings that Mrs. Trump accused her husband of rape. She later told the author of a book about her husband that she had “felt violated” by her ex-husband, but a statement issued by Trump’s lawyers said she did not want her words “to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.” According to the New York Times, the 1992 divorce settlement between Ivana and Donald Trump awarded her a $14 million settlement, a Connecticut mansion, an apartment in the Upper East Side condominium known as Trump Plaza, and one month a year at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Mrs Trump would marry and divorce twice more – in 1995 to an Italian businessman whom she divorced two years later and in 2008 to an Italian actor more than two decades her junior, in a ceremony held at the Mar-a- Lago with Her former sister-in-law, then Third Circuit Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, presiding. That marriage ended less than a year later. However, she continued to remain friendly with her first husband. According to the New York Post, she claimed to have spoken with him “before and after” his campaign appearances. She later told the Post that her ex-husband offered her the position of ambassador to the Czech Republic after he became president, but she turned it down. And in 2017, she told ABC News in an interview that she spoke with the then-president every two weeks and had a “direct number” with him at the White House. She told ABC that she didn’t “really want to invite” her husband there because his third wife, Melania Trump, also lived there. “I don’t want to cause any kind of jealousy or anything like that because I’m basically Trump’s first wife,” she said. “I’m the first lady.”
