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Wednesday, January 15, 2025  
15 Rajab 1446  

Donald Trump’s ‘original success’ wife, Ivana, dies in NY

She helped build his empire, became jewelry designer

Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, died on Thursday, her family announced, at the age of 73.

She was found in her New York apartment and it appears she had called emergency services with complaints of a heart attack at 12:3opm.

Donald Trump married Ivana in 1977 but they got divorced in 1992. She was the mother of Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Trump. She would not go on to become the First Lady, as Melania Trump did, but she would joke that she was the First Trump Lady.

In an in-depth profile, Jia Tolentino writing in The New Yorker magazine described her in 2017 like this: “Ivana is shameless, superficial, and sometimes surprising—strict in her adherence to a personal code and private ambition, louche in terms of most everything else. (In a cameo in “The First Wives Club,” she memorably said, “Don’t get mad; get everything.”) Because she can broadcast these lively qualities without also maintaining a controlling stake in our government, and because she seems to genuinely work hard at her particular hustle, Ivana is the most appealing of the Trumps.”

Ivana was a former model and of Czech origin. She escaped from Czechoslovakia during the Czech Communist Party’s control and moved to Canada. In the 1970s, she moved to the US.

She was Austrian by marriage to her first husband, Alfred Winklmayr.

Ivana met then Donald Trump when he was 29 years old and emerging as a real estate businessman. She was working as a skiing coach and model in Montreal. She later accused Donald Trump of rape, but then retracted her claim.

Courtesy: The New Yorker
Courtesy: The New Yorker

She helped Trump build some of his most famous buildings, including Trump Tower.

Her net work is estimated to the $50 million at her death.

Ivana went on to run a jewelry business.