Ivana Trump, model and first wife of former President Donald Trump, is being remembered fondly by her children with the ex-commander in chief.
Trump died of a suspected cardiac arrest Thursday at the age of 73 after being found ‘unconscious and unresponsive’ in her New York City townhouse.
Her only daughter, Ivanka Trump, posted to Instagram shortly after the news broke with a series of photos of them together throughout the Trumps’ lives.
‘Heartbroken by the passing of my mother,’ she wrote. ‘Mom was brilliant, charming, passionate and wickedly funny. She modeled strength, tenacity and determination in her every action. She lived life to the fullest — never forgoing an opportunity to laugh and dance. I will miss her forever and will keep her memory alive in our hearts always.’
Her youngest son, Eric Trump, did the same Thursday evening.
Ivana Trump, model and first wife of former President Donald Trump, is being remembered fondly by her children with the ex-Commander in Chief
Her youngest son, Eric Trump, posted this photo of the two of them Thursday evening to Instagram
‘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. 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.’
Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr., has yet to comment.
Ivana was remembered earlier today by her ex-husband in a statement.
‘I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City,’ Trump Sr. wrote. ‘She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life.’
‘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!’
Her divorce lawyer Ira Garr remembered her very fondly: ‘I was really sad to hear this. Back when I was working with her, it was a really big part of my life. I represented her after her divorce,’ he said.
Her only daughter, Ivanka Trump, posted to Instagram shortly after the news broke with a series of photos of them together throughout the Trumps’ lives
Trump had three children with the ex-president – Eric, Ivanka and her eldest, Donald Jr
‘There was a post-nuptial agreement in which Donald Trump would pay her an amount of money after she vacated Trump Tower and we were able to settle the matter amicably.
Trump was married and divorced four times, including to Trump.
‘I also did her prenups for two subsequent marriages. I feel beholden to her. She referred me to a lot of her friends and brought my practice to another level.
‘All of the sudden, my clients had a lot more zeros. It came with a certain cachet to represent her, just like when I represented Rupert Murdoch in 2013.
‘I will always be grateful to these people. She always struck me as a devoted mother. She wanted her kids to have good manners, to do well in school and to work hard and be productive.
Ivana’s youngest child Eric, 38, was seen outside his mother’s New York home on Thursday afternoon shortly after the news of her death broke. He issued a statement to DailyMail.com in the wake of Ivana’s passing, praising her as an ‘incredible woman’
Eric was joined by his wife Lara Trump, 39, who kept her face shielded with large sunglasses as she made her way out of her late mother-in-law’s home
The youngest child of Donald and Ivana Trump was seen climbing into a waiting vehicle outside of the townhouse where his mother was found dead
‘She was just a regular person. Down to earth. If we went to a restaurant she would always be chatting with the waiters.
‘She wasn’t a snob, she never held herself above other people. One day a young woman came into my office and I asked her how she got my name and she said, ‘From Ivana Trump.’
‘I asked, ‘How do you know Ivana?’ and she said she didn’t. She said she saw Ivana in a restaurant and followed her to the bathroom and asked ‘Who was your divorce attorney?’ and Ivana said ‘Ira Garr. Call my assistant tomorrow and she’ll give you his number.’ She was gregarious with people.
Garr singled out having been invited to Trump’s third wedding to Riccardo Mazzucchelli in 1995.
‘She invited me to her small wedding with Ricardo. When she had a retirement party for the children’s nanny she invited me and I sat at the table with her and the kids. I don’t know why, but she was always very kind to me.’
Two people familiar with the matter told AP that police are investigating whether Ivana Trump fell down the stairs, and believe her death was accidental.
Ivan’s Yorkshire Terrier, named Tiger, is seen being brought out of her townhouse following her death
She was found unconscious near a staircase in the home, the people said. The medical examiner´s office will determine an official cause of death.
Police said that Ivana was discovered unresponsive at 12.40pm by cops who had been called to her Upper East Side townhouse on a wellness check, according to the New York Post.
Authorities are investigating whether she may have suffered a cardiac arrest, the outlet reported.
Ivana was last pictured out and about in New York City on June 22, when she was seen leaving her Upper East Side townhouse and being escorted to hair salon.
Images showed the socialite being assisted by an aide, who gave her arm to Ivana as they strolled down the sidewalk to her hair appointment.
The 73-year-old grandmother had remained highly cloistered during the COVID-19 pandemic, but planned to depart for a getaway in St. Tropez on Friday, her best friend Nikki Haskell told Page Six.
‘She was leaving for St. Tropez tomorrow. This was going to be her first trip away since the pandemic,’ said Haskell. ‘She was afraid of getting the virus,’
Haskell added that Ivana was ‘totally locked down’ during the pandemic and ‘wouldn’t go anywhere’ because she was so afraid of catching COVID-19.
Ivana Trump is survived by her mother, her three children and 10 grandchildren.
Ivana’s mother, Marie Zelníčková, is 95 and due to turn 96 in September; she was last seen with her daughter in 2019, when the family gathered to mark the matriarch’s 93rd birthday.
Ivanka Trump posted a tribute to her mother on Instagram, sharing several family photos from throughout the years.
Eric also took to Instagram to post a tribute to his late mother, sharing several images of the socialite and her children over the years, including photos of Ivana with her children when they were younger.
According to TMZ, Ivana – who was reportedly worth $100 million when she died – went into cardiac arrest shortly after lunchtime on Thursday, with the outlet reporting that a call was made to NYPD from someone at her home just after 12.30PM ET.
A grieving Eric was pictured leaving his late mother’s home on Thursday afternoon, at around 4.30PM ET, making his way out of the townhouse alongside his wife, Lara.
Ivana is survived by her three children, as well as her 95-year-old mother, Marie Zelníčková (seen together in 1990)
Ivana was born in Czechoslovakia in 1946 to an electrical engineer father, Miloš Zelníček and telephone operator mother, Marie, however she relocated to Canada in the mid-1970s, before moving to the US, where she took up residence in New York City.
The then-teen used her impressive talents as a skier in order to plan her escape from behind the Iron Curtain; before her marriage to Trump, Ivana was wed to an Austrian ski instructor, Alfred Winklmayr, a friend with whom she tied the knot in order to gain an Austrian passport, which enabled her to leave her communist home country and move to Canada.
She divorced Winklmayr shortly after she was granted an Austrian passport – and she then went on to enjoy a romance with a ski boutique owner in Montreal while also working as a ski instructor. However after just a couple of years of living in Canada, Ivana relocated to Manhattan to pursue her work as a model.
It was here that she met Trump, whom she wed in 1977, having first met him at an event that she attended with a group of fellow models.
Ivana wed Trump in a private ceremony held at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City – and they went on to have three children together: Donald Jr., born in 1977, Ivanka, born in 1981, and Eric, born in 1984.
The couple were married for 13 years before splitting in 1990 after Trump had an affair with Marla Maples, who went on to become his second wife. Ivana was awarded a hefty $14 million as part of her divorce settlement with her former husband, which was made official in 1992 – just months before Trump wed Maples.
Ivana was said to have been left furious over her then-husband’s illicit relationship with Maples, whom she repeatedly bashed in the years following her split from Trump.
In 2017, Ivana detailed her feelings about Trump’s affair with Maples in her book, Raising Trump – revealing in an interview with CBS at the time that she refused to ‘talk about her’ because she was a ‘showgirl’ who would ‘never achieve anything in her life’.
She then implied that Maples was to blame for her marriage ending.
‘Well, she was flirting… and I think she was flirting and and she got away with it,’ Ivana said.
When asked if she blamed Trump now for their marriage ending, Ivana replied: ‘I’m not sure, because Donald would get 1,000 business cards in the pocket every night. He could choose any girl he wanted to have.
‘So I’m not sure if she was. There could be another one, could be another one. I really don’t know.’
Following her death on Thursday, Ivana’s divorce lawyer Ira Garr said: ‘I was really sad to hear this. Back when I was working with her, it was a really big part of my life. I represented her after her divorce.
‘There was a post-nuptial agreement in which Donald Trump would pay her an amount of money after she vacated Trump Tower and we were able to settle the matter amicably.
‘I also did her prenups for two subsequent marriages. I feel beholden to her. She referred me to a lot of her friends and brought my practice to another level.
‘All of the sudden, my clients had a lot more zeros. It came with a certain cachet to represent her, just like when I represented Rupert Murdoch in 2013.
‘I will always be grateful to these people. She always struck me as a devoted mother. She wanted her kids to have good manners, to do well in school and to work hard and be productive.
‘She was just a regular person. Down to earth. If we went to a restaurant she would always be chatting with the waiters.
‘She wasn’t a snob, she never held herself above other people. One day a young woman came into my office and I asked her how she got my name and she said, ‘From Ivana Trump.’
‘I asked, ‘How do you know Ivana?’ and she said she didn’t. She said she saw Ivana in a restaurant and followed her to the bathroom and asked ‘Who was your divorce attorney?’ and Ivana said ‘Ira Garr. Call my assistant tomorrow and she’ll give you his number.’ She was gregarious with people.
‘She invited me to her small wedding with Ricardo. When she had a retirement party for the children’s nanny she invited me and I sat at the table with her and the kids. I don’t know why, but she was always very kind to me.’
Ivana spent years working as a model – which is how she first met Trump, who, she was introduced to at an event in New York City
Trump and Ivana (pictured in 1987) tied the knot in 1977, but split in 1990 after it was revealed he’d had an affair with Marla Maples, who would later become his second wife
Following her split from Trump, Ivana began a romance with Italian businessman Riccardo Mazzucchelli, whom she wed in 1995, however the marriage was short-lived and the pair divorced just two years later.
She then went on to date and marry Italian actor Rossano Rubicondi, who passed away in October 2021 following a battle with cancer.
Rubicondi had liver cancer and suffered a lung aneurysm in the bathtub, his parents said in an interview with an Italian talk show.
Ivana and Rubicondi dated for six years before they tied the knot in 2008 during a lavish $3 million ceremony at Mar-A-Lago, the Palm Beach estate owned by none other than her second ex-husband.
She was 59 at the time, while he was 36.
The wedding was set to the theme of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Nights Dream and 400 guests attended, including the ex-President.
Ivana’s relationship with Rubicondi went through several ups and downs over the years, with the former couple splitting just a few months after their marriage in 2008 and then again in 2009.
They split for a third time in 2011, before reuniting in 2019, when they appeared on Italy’s version of Dancing With the Stars, before breaking up again just a few months later.
But Ivana and Rubicondi remained close and were often pictured together in New York up until just a few months before he passed away.
Ivana maintained a good relationship with Trump over the years, even speaking out to wish him a Happy Birthday in 2021, when she revealed that she had spoken with her ex-husband and joked to him that he shouldn’t ‘worry about his age’.
However the socialite and former downhill skier was never one to hold back when speaking about her ex-spouse.
In November 2020, following the presidential election – which Trump lost to Joe Biden – she discussed his refusal to accept the result, saying that he was ‘not a good loser’ and that he was likely going to ‘fight and fight and fight’ against conceding the race.
