Authorities believe Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, died after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Ivana, a skier turned businesswoman, was found unconscious at the foot of a ladder from her home in Manhattan shortly after noon Thursday, local time.
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According to the NY Post, authorities believe Ivana, 73, suffered a cardiac arrest.
Two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that police are investigating whether he fell down the stairs.
The forensic doctor’s office will determine the official cause of death.
Authorities believe Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, died after suffering a cardiac arrest. Credit: Rebecca Smeyne / Getty Images
Former President Trump has paid an emotional tribute to his ex-wife.
“She was a wonderful, beautiful and amazing woman, who led a fantastic and inspiring life,” she wrote on Social Truth.
The couple had three children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
“I was as proud of them, as we were all so proud of her,” she wrote. “Rest in peace, Ivana!”
“It’s been a very sad day, a very sad day,” Eric Trump said as he walked out of his mother’s apartment building near Central Park.
Donald and Ivana Trump during the 20th Scopus Awards honor Merv Griffin in Beverly Hills. Credit: Ron Galella / Getty
In a statement, he and his siblings called her “an amazing woman: a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty and an affectionate mother and friend” and a survivor.
“She fled communism and embraced this country,” the three said in a statement.
“She taught her children about rigor and toughness, compassion and determination.”
How Ivana met Donald Trump
A Czech-born ski runner and once a model, Ivana met the future president in the 1970s and quickly perceived him as “smart and funny, a good guy from all over America,” as she wrote in a book by 2017. The couple married in 1977.
She became an icon in her own right, with the style and elegance of the 80s, with her characteristic hive hairstyle.
He influenced the look of the exaggerated Patsy Stone in the classic British comedy Absolutely Fabulous, with the character exalting Ivana as “tremendous” in one episode.
Over time, Trump herself appeared in the hit 1996 film The First Wives Club with the now-famous phrase, “Ladies, you have to be strong and independent, and remember, don’t get angry, do it all. “.
Ivanka Trump and Ivana Trump in the 1990s. Credit: Foc Kan / WireImage
The Trumps became partners in love and business.
He ran one of his Atlantic City casinos and helped make Trump Tower an image of 80s success (or excess, for some).
He canceled the architects to install a 60-foot (182 cm) waterfall in the atrium of the Trump Tower, and went to an Italian quarry to choose the pink beige Breccia Perniche marble lining his floors. and walls, according to Donald Trump’s biographer. Wayne Barrett.
Barbara Res, a former Trump Organization executive who was in charge of building the skyscraper, recalled that Ivana helped the decorator and was very interested in details like the uniforms of the porters.
“He did all this to impress Donald, to earn his approval,” Nothing said. “She traveled back and forth all the time and left her children. She had a tremendous work ethic.”
Both were elements of the New York City seeing and being seen scene before their equally public and messy divorce in 1992. Donald Trump had met his next wife, Marla Maples.
“I couldn’t turn on the TV without hearing my name,” Ivana Trump wrote in her book.
Ivanka Trump and Ivana Trump in 2013. Credit: Jemal Comtessa / Getty Images
During the separation, Ivana Trump accused him of rape in an affidavit in the early 1990s. She later said she didn’t mean it literally, but felt raped.
Donald Trump sometimes said he regretted Ivana joining him in business and blamed him for breaking up his marriage.
“I think putting a woman to work is a very dangerous thing,” she told ABC News in the early 1990s.
“If you’re in business for yourself, I really think it’s a bad idea to put your wife working for you,” she said, complaining that when she became an entrepreneur “a softness disappeared.”
‘The Donald’
However, Ivana eventually remained friendly with her ex-husband, whom she famously called “The Donald”.
She enthusiastically backed her career in the White House in 2016, saying she would make “big changes” in the United States, and told the New York Post that she was giving him suggestions about her campaign.
“We talk before and after the appearances and he asks me what I thought,” he said. He said he advised him to “be calmer.”
“But Donald can’t be quiet,” he added. “It’s very frank. It just says it the way it is.”
Although he supported her, from time to time his feathers sank.
Ivana Trump and Donald Trump. Credit: Ron Galella / Ron Galella Collection via Getty
In 2017, while promoting his book, he told Good Morning America that he spoke with the then president every two weeks and that he had his direct White House number, but that he didn’t want to call too often because of the then First Lady Melania Trump. presence.
“I don’t want to cause any kind of jealousy or anything like that because I’m basically Trump’s first wife, okay?” said Ivana, laughing. “I’m the first lady, okay?”
Melania Trump’s spokeswoman at the time responded, saying that “clearly there was no substance to this statement from an ex, unfortunately it’s just a noise of attention seeking and self-service.”
Ivana Trump had continued with her businesses in recent years, promoting an Italian diet plan to lose weight in 2018.
“Health is the most important thing we have. Let’s be like that “, he said at that moment.
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His death came during a difficult week for the Trump family.
Two of his sons, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, and the former president are due to appear in the next few days to be questioned in the New York Attorney General’s civil investigation into the family’s business practices.
Ivana Trump was born Ivana Zelnickova in 1949 in the Czechoslovak city of Gottwaldov, formerly Zlin, which had just been renamed by the Communists who took over the country in 1948.
She married four times, the last time to Italian actor Rossano Rubicondi.
The two divorced in 2009 after a year of marriage, but continued to see each other until 2019, when he told the New York Post that the relationship had continued its course.
He died last year of cancer at the age of 49.
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