Ivana Trump, the first wife of former US President Donald Trump, died yesterday after accidentally falling down the stairs of her New York home, authorities and local media reported this Friday.
The local coroner’s office said today that the 73-year-old former Czechoslovakian model and businesswoman died from “blunt force injuries” to the torso from an “accident” after emergency crews found her at her Manhattan home.
According to police sources told The New York Post, an assistant and a cleaning employee of Ivana tried to enter the house that morning but received no response, and when a maintenance worker opened the door, he found her body at the bottom of some stairs , next to an overturned cup of coffee.
“I am sad to inform those who loved her, which are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City,” Donald Trump, who had her three eldest children with her, said yesterday on his social network: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
“Ivana Trump was a survivor. She fled communism and embraced this country. She taught her children to have grit and resilience, compassion and determination. She will be greatly missed by her mother, her three children and her ten grandchildren,” her family said in a note.
The former Czechoslovakian model emigrated to the United States, married the tycoon in 1977 and became a collaborator in several of his businesses until reaching executive positions in the Trump Organization and some hotels.
The couple, widely followed by the tabloids, divorced in 1992 amid great media scrutiny after Trump’s affair with actress Marla Maples, whom he would marry a year later and have a daughter, Tiffany.
Ivana, who decided to keep her first husband’s surname, has since then developed a versatile career in which she launched lines of clothing, jewelry and beauty products, wrote several books and collaborated in magazines.