Donald Trump opens up about Ivana Trump ahead of his ex-wife’s New York funeral
Ivana Trump was farewelled in a golden casket at a star-studded funeral, with Donald Trump paying tribute to his ‘beautiful’ ex-wife. See photos, video.
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Ivana Trump, the late first wife of former US President Donald Trump, has been remembered with a “glamorous send-off” at her funeral in New York today.
The service for the 73-year-old businesswoman was held at St. Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church, near where she lived in New York’s Upper East Side, on Wednesday afternoon local time.
Around 1.30pm, a black hearse pulled up and several pallbearers in white gloves picked up Ivana’s gold casket and carried it inside for the service, which was closed to the public. Her children, Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric followed closely behind. All three of them delivered eulogies during the service, in addition to two of Ivana’s friends.
“My mother hated funerals,” Ivanka Trump reportedly told the room at the beginning of her eulogy.
“She wanted to celebrate life.”
Ivanka went on to share several fond memories about Ivana, shedding tears along the way, according to sources who attended the funeral.
“Growing up, my mother didn’t tell me a woman could do anything she wanted to – she showed me,” Ivanka said.
“She was a trailblazer by men and women alike.”
Many of the guests smiled as Ivanka warmly remembered her mother chastising her for wearing a mini skirt that “wasn’t mini enough”.
“Flaunt it while you have it,” was Ivana’s motherly wisdom.
Donald Trump Jr. remembered his mother’s reaction when he threw a tantrum at a restaurant in the Hamptons, when he was around four years old.
“My mother took me to the bathroom and gave me some old world punishment,” he recalled to laughs.
“And I left with my butt red. She told me if I cry, she’d bring me back for more. That probably wouldn’t fly today, but maybe it should because I was a perfect little boy for the rest of that dinner.”
Eric Trump also looked back on his mother fondly.
“She had brains; she had beauty,” Eric said.
“She was the embodiment of the American dream … She was a force of nature.
“She ruled the three of us [kids] with an iron fist but also a heart of gold.”
Despite the heavy police presence, Donald Trump was not seen arriving at the funeral but did appear outside with his wife Melania – who was not expected to attend – as mourners left the ceremony.
The couple appeared at the top of the church stairs with his children, their families, and others before they followed Ivana’s gold casket back to the hearse. The Trump family, looking sombre, briefly posed together for photos at the bottom of the church steps before returning inside as other mourners departed.
Former US President Donald Trump and former First Lady Melania Trump join his children Don Jr, Ivanka and Eric behind their mother Ivana Trump’s casket following her “celebration of life†funeral service in New York pic.twitter.com/gGHPuksPT4
— Megan Palin (@Megan_Palin) July 20, 2022
Ahead of the service, Donald Trump made an uncharacteristic display of vulnerability in revealing how hurt he was at the loss of his first wife, according to the New York Post.
“I’m feeling OK. I had some rest. A little sleep. But I’m sad,” he said in a low voice before the funeral.
“She was outstanding. Beautiful inside and out. We began all of it, our lives together, with such a great relationship.”
What Trump remembered most, he said, was how “different” she was as someone who “never gave up”.
“From when I first met her, she was beautiful. She was special,” he said.
“Beautiful, yes, but she was also a hard worker. No matter how rough things were or how badly they looked she never fell down. She went from communism to our lives together. She took nothing for granted,” he added.
Earlier, guests arriving at the invitation-only ceremony were swiped with metal detector wands before walking into the church.
The “Celebration of Life” invitation obtained by multiple media outlets featured a stunning, glamorously dressed, younger Ivana skiing. She was once a competitive skier.
Members of the Secret Service swarmed the area, with NYPD officers installing barricades, patting down members of the press and using sniffer dogs to patrol the grounds as temperatures soared to 35C outside.
Helicopters hovered up and members of the general public were ushered away from the block by authorities during the service – unless they could prove they were residents.
New Jersey resident Alison Mann, 37, told News Corp Australia she came to pay her respects to Ivana because she had made influenced her childhood as a successful immigrant in the US and made a good impression when they met at a restaurant years earlier.
“My parents loved the Trump’s in the 80s and Ivana especially represented an immigrant success story,” she said.
In 2015, Ms Mann and her mother spotted Ivana at a restaurant on New York’s upper east side. “We went to say hi,” Ms Mann said.
“She asked us our names, where we were from and what we were eating.
“She was very engaging. At here was no element of snobbery at all. We were just talking to someone we felt like we’d known a long time.”
R. Couri Hay, a society columnist who knew Ivana for more than 40 years, told PEOPLE that her funeral would honour her “dazzling legacy”.
“We are really grateful to the family, especially her children, for arranging this big, glamorous send-off with all of her friends,” Hay told the outlet.
“This would have been what she wanted.
“People are flying in from all over the world.”
The Trump family earlier requested that – instead of flowers – attendees make a financial donation to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, a charity focused on animal wellbeing and combating dog abandonment.
The rescue has a longstanding relationship with Ivana and wrote after her death that she “was philanthropically involved with many charities throughout her entire life, but always remained steadfast and passionate in her love for animals.”
The Trump matriarch died of “blunt impact injuries” to the torso in an accident, New York’s chief medical examiner said on Friday.
The statement did not specify the circumstances, but US media reported that police had been investigating whether she died from a fall down the stairs at her Manhattan home.
A spokesperson for the New York Police Department told AFP in a statement on Thursday that officers responded to a call at Ivana Trump’s address on the Upper East Side, and found her “unconscious and unresponsive.”
She was pronounced dead at the scene, and the statement added that “there does not appear to be any criminality.”
Donald Trump announced her death on Thursday, calling her a “wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life.”
He said the couple’s three children were her “pride and joy”.
The former spouses maintained a cordial and friendly relationship after their divorce.
Donald Trump Jr., posted on Instagram following his mother’s death.
“Mom, we will miss you incredibly,” he wrote. “Thanks for always pushing us hard, not letting us get away with anything, and instilling so many incredible values and personality traits.”
“From your sense of humour to your sense of adventure, I am who I am today because of you,” he wrote. “I love you very much. R.I.P.”
Her daughter, Ivanka, also posted childhood photos to Instagram, saying she is “heartbroken by the passing” of her mother.
“Mom was brilliant, charming, passionate and wickedly funny,” Ivanka wrote. “She modelled strength, tenacity and determination in her every action.”
“She lived life to the fullest – never forging an opportunity to laugh and dance,” she continued. “I will miss her forever and will keep her memory alive in our hearts always.”
In an Instagram post last week, Eric Trump described his mother “an incredible woman – a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend.”“Ivana Trump was a survivor. She fled from communism and embraced this country,” Eric Trump continued. “She taught her children about grit and toughness, compassion and determination. She will be dearly missed by her mother, her three children and ten grandchildren.”
Ivana, a model who grew up under communist rule in the former Czechoslovakia, married Donald Trump, then a budding real estate developer, in 1977.
Their first child, Donald Jr., was born later that year. Ivanka was born in 1981 and Eric followed in 1984.
Throughout the ‘80s, the Trumps were one of New York’s highest-profile couples, their extravagant lifestyle exemplifying the flashy excesses of the decade.
Their power and celebrity grew as Donald Trump’s property business soared, with Ivana taking on a number of key roles in the business.
While married to the man she famously dubbed “The Donald,’’ Ivana helped him develop the iconic Trump Tower in Manhattan and managed The Plaza hotel in the city after he bought it.
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Their high-profile split, rumoured to have been caused in part by Donald Trump’s affair with actress Marla Maples, provided juicy content for New York’s tabloids.
Donald Trump and Ivana divorced in the early ‘90s and in 1993 the future president married Maples.
Ivana went on to enjoy a successful business career of her own, developing clothing, jewellery and beauty products and penning a number of books.
She was married four times in her life, once before her marriage to Donald Trump and twice after.
On Friday, a US justice official said depositions of Donald Trump, Donald Jr and Ivanka in New York’s civil probe into alleged fraud at his family business had been postponed following her death.
– Additional reporting by AFP
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