Donald Trump first wife Ivana dies aged 73

NEW YORK- Ivana Trump, former Wife of Donald Trump, is Dead at 73.
She helped build his real estate empire, and the two became known as New York’s quintessential 1980s power couple.
He announced her death on his social media platform.
Ivana Trump, the glamorous Czech-American businesswoman whose high-profile marriage to Donald J. Trump in the 1980s established them as one of New York’s quintessential power couples of that era, died on Thursday at her home in Manhattan. She was 73.

Mr. Trump announced her death in a statement on Truth Social, the conservative social media platform he founded. No other details were provided.

“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,” he 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!”

Mrs. Trump commanded almost as much media attention as her husband and together they helped define the 1980s as an era of gaudy excess among the social elite, an image that Mr. Trump used to fuel his turn as an outsize television personality before his 2016 run for the White House.

Though Mr. Trump often bragged about his singular business prowess, Mrs. Trump played a critical part in building his real-estate empire, beginning soon after their marriage in 1977.

Often described as detail-obsessed and a workaholic, she worked alongside her husband on several of his early signature projects, like the development of Trump Tower in Manhattan and the Trump Taj Mahal casinoin Atlantic City, N.J.

She was the vice president for interior design for his company, the Trump Organization, and managed one of his most prized properties, the Plaza Hotel, all while raising their three children, Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka.

The couple’s 1990 divorce, driven in part by Mr. Trump’s affair with Marla Maples, whom he later married, provided tabloid fodder for weeks. In a deposition, Mrs. Trump accused Mr. Trump of raping her, though she later said that she had not meant the word literally.

The divorce made Mrs. Trump something of a heroine for spurned wives everywhere — she even had a cameo in the 1996 film “The First Wives Club,” in which she tells a group of disgruntled divorced women, “Don’t get mad, get everything!”

She used her business prowess to great effect as well. She developed lines of clothing, jewelry and beauty products, which she promoted through outlets like the Home Shopping Network and QVC. She invested in real estate, domestically and in Europe, and wrote several books, including “The Best Is Yet to Come: Coping With Divorce and Enjoying Life Again” (1995) and, most recently, “Raising Trump” (2017), a memoir of her marriage to Mr. Trump.

Source: New York Times