Ivana Trump: What you don’t know about Donald Trump’s first wife
She once wrote a divorce guide with the advice “take his wallet to the cleaners,” before doing just that on splitting with Donald, a moment that freed Ivana to pursue her own, very public, pursuits.
Ron Galella / WireImage
Ivana with her then-husband Donald Trump. The couple's 1992 divorce was bitter and made headlines around the world
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.—In October 1987, Ivana
Trump sat at her mahogany desk at the Trump’s Castle Hotel and Casino in
Atlantic City where she commuted each day from New York by helicopter
and mused about the possibility of being married to a presidential contender.
“I wouldn’t like it. I treasure the family
privacy too much,” the Czech-born former model told a Palm Beach Post
reporter visiting her elegant office, “but he makes the decisions.”
“He” being Ivana’s then-husband of 10 years,
Donald, who years later said his current run for the presidency had its
roots that fall in a GOP activist’s Draft Trump movement.
“I never say never,” Ivana said at the time
about her husband’s political aspirations. “He is 41 now. Who can say in
10 years what he will do?”
It took 28 years, not 10, for Trump to decide
to run. By then, worrying about her family’s loss of privacy was left to
Trump’s third wife, Melania.
SWERZEY
The couple in 1989. They split over Donald Trump's public dalliances with actress Marla Maples, whom he would later marry.
In the meantime, the ever-buoyant Ivana, now
67 and a grandmother of eight, has reinvented herself many times
personally, professionally and, due to a series of plastic surgeries,
even physically.
The 1992 divorce from Trump over his public
dalliances with actress Marla Maples, who would become Trump’s second
wife and mother of their daughter, Tiffany, became a vicious public
circus.
In a deposition, Ivana claimed Trump raped her during an
argument, a claim she later denied.
The battle would have sent a lesser woman slinking off to obscurity.
But Ivana, a former competitive skier, went for the gold.
And got it, in a settlement estimated at $14
million (U.S.) to $20 million plus custody of the couples’ three
children: Donald Jr., now 38; Eric, 32; and Ivanka Trump Kushner, 34.
Suddenly, Ivana didn’t have to answer to her ex-husband.
Represented by the William Morris Agency,
Ivana began a dizzying series of media appearances and business deals,
her buttercream blond bouffant appearing in ads for Coors Light, Pizza
Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and the Milk Campaign.
Donald and Ivana Trump with their daughter Ivanka. Since splitting from Donald, Ivana has become a successful businesswoman.
In 1992, she published a racy roman a clef about a Czech-born beauty and her wealthy hotelier husband called For Love Alone,
although critics dubbed it “For Revenge Alone.” She also wrote a
divorce guide, in which she urged spurned women to “take his wallet to
the cleaners.”
She even appeared as herself in The First Wives’ Club
movie with Goldie Hawn, telling divorced women “don’t get mad, get
everything.” (Although Ivana was actually a second wife, having been
married in the early 1970s to Austrian skier Alfred Wiklmayr.)
Ivana, now a bona fide businesswoman, became
one of the first “sellebrities,” selling her high fashion and jewelry
lines on TV home shopping networks. She owns property in St. Tropez,
Miami, New York and London.
A 1995 rebound marriage to Italian businessman
Riccardo Mazzucchelli lasted two years, then Ivana seemed to follow in
Trump’s footsteps by dating younger partners.
As always, she was in on the joke.
The pair pose together at a Betsey Johnson fashion show in New York in 1997.
She starred in a 2006 dating show called Ivana Young Man.
“I’m very energetic. I don’t want to worry
about a bad back and bad knees,” she told Oprah Winfrey. “Younger guy
gives you a little bit of the edge because it’s just more of the energy,
which I definitely need.”
In 2008, Ivana, then 59, tied the knot with
35-year-old Italian model-actor Rossano Rubicondi in a ceremony that
reportedly cost $3 million in front of 23 bridesmaids, 300 guests — and
her now-friendly ex-husband.
The Palm Beach Daily News reported that the groom entered to the theme from Rocky.
During the ring ceremony, he repeated in accented English the phrase
“but a small token” as “a small butt token.” After which, the wedding
party retreated into a reception room named for the bride’s second
husband.
Perhaps it surprised no one when the marriage ended four months later.
Even into her seventh decade, Ivana has continued to seek the spotlight.
At age 60, she stripped down to her underwear on U.K. television for Celebrity Big Brother,
seeming to affirm that if you believe you’re a beautiful and glamorous
older woman, so will everyone else. Or that with enough confidence, you
can delude yourself into thinking it.
Vivien Killilea
Ivana has reinvented herself many times personally, professionally and physically. She is pictured here in 2015.
But who are we to argue with an almost-70-year-old woman who says her three boyfriends keep her busy?
Since Trump launched his presidential campaign, Ivana has seemed to wobble on her stilettos.
In January, she was reportedly scolded by the Trump campaign for questioning Melania Trump’s ability to be first lady.
She was excoriated earlier this month after
discussing immigration with the New York Post, a subject with which she,
as an Eastern European immigrant, is familiar.
“As long as you come here legally and get a
proper job ... we need immigrants,” she said. “Who’s going to vacuum our
living rooms and clean up after us? Americans don’t like to do that.”
And to the inevitable question, she confirmed that her former husband has no problems with the size of his, er, hands.
Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/04/30/ivana-trump-what-you-dont-know-about-donald-trumps-first-wife.html
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