Ivana Trump, who was former US President Donald Trump’s first wife and mother of his eldest children, has died in New York City, her family said Thursday. She was 73 years old.
The former president posted on his social media app that Ivana Trump passed away at his Manhattan residence.
“She was a wonderful, beautiful, amazing woman who led a great and inspiring life,” Trump posted on Truth Social. The couple had three children: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
“She was so proud of them, as all of us were proud of her,” she wrote. “Rest in peace Ivana!”
Two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that police are investigating whether Ivana Trump fell down the stairs and believe her death was accidental.
She was found unresponsive near a staircase in the home, said the people, who could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. The medical examiner’s office will determine the official cause of her death.
“It’s been a very sad day, a very sad day,” said Eric Trump as he left his mother’s home near Central Park.
In a statement, he and his siblings said she was “an incredible woman: a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and a loving mother and friend.”
Ivana Trump “fled communism and adopted this country,” the statement added. She “taught her children about courage and strength, compassion and determination.”
Born in the Czech Republic, the skier and occasional model met the future president in the 1970s and quickly came to perceive him as “smart and funny, a nice American guy,” she wrote in a 2017 book. The couple married in 1977.
She became an icon in her own right, oozing with 1980s style and glamour, with her signature blonde hairstyle. She influenced the look of the over-the-top Patsy Stone in the classic British comedy “Absolutely Fabulous.”
The couple were stars of the New York scene before their equally public and murky divorce in 1992. Donald Trump had met his next wife, Marla Maples.
During their separation, Ivana Trump accused her ex-husband of rape in an affidavit in the early 1990s. She later said that she didn’t mean it literally, but that she felt violated.
Donald Trump sometimes said he regretted Ivana joining him in business and blamed her for the collapse of their marriage.
However, Ivana ultimately remained friends with her ex-husband, whom she famously called “The Donald.” She enthusiastically supported her run for the White House in 2016, saying she would “make big changes” in America, and told the New York Post that she gave him tips for her campaign.
“We talk before and after presentations and he asks me what I thought,” he said, adding that he advised him to “be calmer.”
“But Donald cannot rest easy,” he added. “He is very frank. He tells it like it is.”
Ivana Zelnickova, her maiden name, was born in 1949 in the Czechoslovak city of Gottwaldov, as the city of Zlín was named by the communists when they took power in the country in 1948.
–
