The Tragic, True Story Of Donald Trump's First Wife Ivana

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"Ladies, you have to be strong and independent. And remember, don't get mad — get everything," said Ivana Trump during her cameo appearance in the 1996 film "The First Wives Club" (via The New York Post). Within reason, Ivana did get everything: four husbands, a 45-room mansion, millions of dollars, plus success as a self-help writer and fashion entrepreneur. However, having everything also came with a lot of tragedy.

In her journey from promising Czechoslovakian skier to New York socialite-model-businesswoman married to the future president in the '70s and '80s, there's enough tragedy to fill a book on its own. But her trials and tribulations didn't end there. Between the fallout of Ivana's split from Donald Trump in 1992 and why she really divorced her fourth husband, Rossano Rubicondi, in 2009, she also had a Sisyphean love life. Yet it was not just her origin story and romances that were full of sadness; what Ivana was doing in her final days is equally heartbreaking.

So, grab the Kleenex, because here are the true and tragic details of Ivana's life.

Marry your best friend, that's what they say. It's the maxim Ivana Trump — knowingly or unknowingly — followed in 1971 when she married her Austrian pal and fellow skier, Alfred Winklmayr. There's a lot to unpack there. Yes, Ivana did have a marriage before Donald Trump. And yes, she was a skier who was even good enough to compete as part of the Czechoslovakian junior national team.

But despite the ring on her finger, Winklmayr remained firmly a friend. As her lawyer, Michael Kennedy, put it in 1990, the marriage "was never consummated" and the pair never shared a home (via the South China Morning Post). They wed so Ivana could get an Austrian passport without defecting from Czechoslovakia. Thus, she could travel freely with the right to return home. The couple divorced in 1973. It wasn't the last time Ivana would be involved in a short-lived marriage, but more on that later.

Thankfully, Ivana Trump was able to find love with the playwright and songwriter Jiří Staidl despite her loveless marriage. However, in 1973, the same year she left her administrative marriage to Alfred Winklmayr, Ivana's romance with Staidl also ended with the most tragic of circumstances.

But let's take it back to the start. Staidl and Ivana, née Zelníčková, met at Charles University in Czechoslovakia. At the university, Ivana achieved a master's degree in physical education and also became Staidl's muse for his love songs. However, Staidl's life wasn't all about penning paeans to his new belle. Instead, he was known to be reckless and a heavy drinker, not two things that inspire longevity.

On October 9, 1973, Staidl was driving his sports car with characteristic abandon. He had "several shots in him and an unknown beauty in the passenger seat," a Czech newspaper reported at the time (via Vanity Fair). That's when a truck slammed into his car, flung Staidl out, and killed him. The unknown beauty in the passenger seat? According to George Syrovatka, a friend of Ivana from her skiing days, she was identified in the aforementioned newspaper by her I.Z. initials. "It probably was Ivana in the car," Syrovatka told Vanity Fair. "[B]ut she has denied it, and I have never pressed her further." Whether she was in the car or not, it's nonetheless a heartbreaking end to a life and a romance.

On February 16, 1990, just over a decade into his marriage with Ivana, Donald Trump's face was plastered all over The New York Post, with the headline: "The Best Sex I've Ever Had." Tragically, it wasn't about Ivana. Instead, it detailed Trump's affair with Marla Maples.

In her aforementioned book, which was titled "Raising Trump" and released in 2017, Ivana let readers know how the affair made her feel. "[Maples] actively participated in humiliating me in the media and indirectly put my kids at risk for months," she wrote (via People). "I went through hell, and then I was expected to be okay with her being around my children?

"We all have deep scars from that period of our lives, in part due to [Maples'] actions," she added. What's more, Ivana reportedly got plastic surgery because of Donald's ex-mistress. And to make matters worse, Maples and Ivana's ex went on to marry in 1993. But even after Marla Maples and Donald Trump's divorce, Ivana has rejected all public apologies from Tiffany Trump's mom.

​​"I can only shake my head at how it insane it was," Ivana Trump wrote in her memoir "Raising Trump," looking back on her divorce from Donald Trump (via People). "I couldn't turn on the television without hearing my name." Insane was putting it lightly.

In the early 1990s, Donald and Ivana's divorce was the talk of New York City. According to People, it was headline news for 11 days in the Big Apple's daily tabloids, with headlines like "Trump vs. Trump: Billion Dollar Blowup." Indeed, the divorce was famously expensive. According to The New York Times, Ivana got "$14 million, a 45-room Greenwich, Connecticut, mansion, an apartment in the Trump Plaza, and the use of the 118-room Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida for one month a year." Plus, $650,000 per year to support the couple's three children. Despite the material gain, she lost something priceless: trust.

"I told myself, 'Am I going to live with the person [who] is going to say, 'I'm going to go and play golf' [leaving me to] think, 'Is he really going to go and play golf?' I cannot do it," Ivana said to Page Six in 2018. "I have pride and I have dignity and stuff like that, but so many women, around the world, they live with the men knowing that they are cheating and stuff like that. Everybody handles their situation their own way." Tragically, that wasn't the last time Ivana had to deal with divorce.

But material disputes and loss of trust weren't the only reasons Ivana and Donald Trump's divorce was tragic. During the legal proceedings of their split, some shocking revelations came to light. In Ivana's 1989 deposition case as part of the divorce, she alleged that Donald once raped her.

The details of the deposition came to light in Harry Hurt III's 1993 book, "Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump." According to excerpts from the text, published in the Daily Beast, Ivana described how Donald, angered after a botched scalp reduction surgery, grabbed her hair, ripped some out, took off her clothes, and then sexually assaulted her. After the alleged incident, Ivana spent the night in tears behind a locked door.

However, before the book's publication, Ivana played down her own claims. "During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me," Ivana said in a statement (via ABC News). "As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a 'rape,' but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense." However, regardless of how you interpret it, nothing like this should ever happen in a marriage. Sadly, it's another tragic detail in a divorce full of them.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

Yes, this is Ivana Trump's third divorce on this list. Don't say we didn't warn you. So, again, let's go back to the beginning. At the Ascot horse races in the U.K., Ivana met Riccardo Mazzucchelli, a businessman, in 1991. Mazzucchelli won her over by sending her roses and, within the year, proposed with a 10-carat diamond ring. However, at first, Ivana said no. Three years later, Mazzucchelli proposed again, this time with a Burmese sapphire. She finally said yes. But after tying the knot with Mazzucchelli in 1995, everything changed.

"Ivana was on Home Shopping, she took cabs, stayed in motel rooms, never said boo. She marries Riccardo, and he starts making demands," said the socialite Vivian Serota when speaking to Vanity Fair about the pair's life as newlyweds. "He became a prima donna." Understandably, it didn't last. The couple divorced in 1997, just 20 months after they wed. But that doesn't mean it didn't greatly affect Ivana. "I'm very sad, I cry," she said in the wake of the divorce (via People). "I love Riccardo. This is a tremendously hard time for me. It's very painful to go through six years of relationship with a person and to be disappointed or filing for divorce or whatever."

But Ivana's next marriagedidn't go much better.

In April 2008, Ivana Trump married Rossano Rubicondi. The couple had dated for six years prior to tying the knot. However, they split after a year of marriage. It's fair to say there were plenty of warning signs before they wed. In fact, the $3 million wedding almost didn't happen.

Just weeks before the wedding, at Mar-a-Lago, Rubicondi was handcuffed after police were called to the estate due to a "domestic disturbance" (via Town & Country). It was later reported that Trump and Rubicondi had come to blows over their prenup. The wedding didn't go much better. In his father-of-the-bride speech, Ivana's son, Donald Trump Jr., gave an ominous warning to his mom's new man. "We are a construction company and we have job sites, we lose people," he told Rubicondi and those in attendance (via Town and Country). "You better treat her right, because I have a .45 and a shovel." Likewise, many of her close pals even wished the couple had never met.

Tragically, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the fourth time wasn't the charm for Ivana. "Rossano wants to live in Miami and work in Milan," Ivana said in a statement announcing her and Rubicondi's divorce (via People). "But, I am a New Yorker and my family, friends ,and businesses are here. As the beautiful song says, 'Que sera sera!'" But that wasn't the last she'd hear from Rubicondi.

Donald Trump's relationship with his kids has been well-documented. However, to Ivana Trump's frustration, she didn't get enough credit for raising them. When her three children — Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump — had the media's eyes on them during Donald's 2016 presidential campaign, Ivana felt she was not given her laurels for turning them into White House-ready offspring. Even Donald's election rival, Hillary Clinton, credited the presidential candidate and not Ivana for their children's upstandingness. "I respect his children. His children are incredibly able and devoted, and I think that says a lot about Donald," said the former first lady in 2016 (via The Guardian). So, we can understand that Ivana may have felt shortchanged in this respect.

"I believe the credit for raising such great kids belongs to me," Ivana wrote in her book "Raising Trump" (via Time). "I was in charge of raising our children before our divorce, and I had sole custody of them after the split. I made the decisions about their education, activities, travel, child care, and allowances. When each one finished college, I said to [Donald], 'Here is the finished product. Now it's your turn.'" With all of Ivana's unseen labor during motherhood, it's fair to say she felt aggrieved that Donald got all the plaudits for how their children turned out.

Yes, you read that right: Ivana Trump's ex-husband, Rossano Rubicondi, had only been her ex for just over a year before his death. After legally splitting in 2009, the couple continued to have an on-and-off relationship until 2019. But even as exes, they remained close. The pair were even seen walking together through New York City in July 2021. Heartbreakingly, just a few months later in October, Rubicondi was found dead at his home.

Rubicondi's death was tragic; he slipped and fell in his bathtub, hitting his head and bursting a vein in his lung. He had also been diagnosed with liver cancer before he passed, and Ivana was reportedly the only person who knew. Admirably, she looked after him and supported him while he was ill.

So, Ivana was understandably devastated to lose her ex and close friend. "She called us to express her sorrow and said she will send us Rossano's ashes," Rubicondi's father, Claudio Rubicondi, told Italian talk show "Pomeriggio Cinque" (via the Daily Mail). "Ivana asked if she could keep half the ashes," Rosa Rubicondi, Rossano's mother, added. "I said yes."

"I think Rossano's death sank [Ivana Trump]," Paolo Alavian, owner of Altesi (one of Ivana's favorite restaurants), told New York magazine. "She was very, very down; we could see it."

The COVID pandemic and its subsequent lockdowns didn't help. Ivana was said to have been hypervigilant about the infectious disease and had also become frail. So, she spent the pandemic era isolated from the outside world in her New York home, ordering takeout cacio e pepe or pappardelle pesto. But even after restrictions eased, she wasn't herself.

"She was very active before COVID, very organized and extremely disciplined, up at 6 o'clock, on the treadmill reading all the newspapers before breakfast," said Ivana's friend Alisa Roever when speaking to New York magazine. "The COVID slowdown made her age. She was still put together, still had the hair and nails, but the energy wasn't the same." Pre-pandemic, Ivana was synonymous with red carpets and holding court in lavish New York restaurants. But tragically, she was more like the antithesis of herself in her last days. 

In July 2022, at age 73, Ivana Trump suffered a fall. Paramedics arrived at her Manhattan home, where she was found unconscious and unresponsive in her pajamas, but sadly, they weren't in time. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Tragically, Trump was scheduled to take her first flight since the COVID pandemic (off to the suitably glam Saint-Tropez) just hours after she passed.

But what's most tragic about her passing is just how preventable it was. "I'm totally heartbroken over it, I think about it all the time. It was so unnecessary for her to die," her longtime pal Nikki Haskell told People. "I told her it was extremely important to get someone to live in the house with her, I said, 'God forbid you fall down those stairs.'" Haskell added that Trump had vetoed the idea of having a helping-hand housemate.

"[W]hen someone called to tell me she'd died, I immediately asked, 'Did she fall down the stairs?'" Haskell continued. "I was very angry about it for a long time. This shouldn't have happened."

Death. Regardless of culture, it's something that is generally treated with great reverence and respect across the board. But sadly, some allege that the place where Ivana Trump is buried has not gotten much respect. "I couldn't believe her 3 kids — whom she apparently loved and who loved her — would allow their father to treat their mother like this," wrote Brooke Harrington, a professor of sociology at Dartmouth College, in a now-deleted X post in 2022 (via The Guardian). "Burying Ivana in little more than a pauper's grave disgraces them all."

Indeed, in photos shared with the Daily Mail, Ivana's place of rest looked in need of some TLC. The granite stone emblazoned with her name, at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, was covered in overgrown grass. Perhaps one explanation for this untidiness is that, as some believe, the plot was chosen as less of a grave and more of a tax exemption. In New Jersey, cemeteries are exempt from all kinds of taxes: personal property taxes, business taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, and inheritance taxes. You name it, it's exempt. Moreover, there's also no requirement for the amount of human remains needed to make a piece of land a cemetery. We'll let you draw your own conclusions. Either way, it's tragic that her grave was left so unkempt.