Donald Trump’s grim love life and spouse Melania’s ‘mysterious’ disappearance

After twice-impeached Donald Trump ended his presidency amid a cloud of controversy in 2021, it appeared extremely unlikely he’d ever re-enter the world of politics.

Three years on nevertheless, the 77-year-old has his eyes firmly set on returning to the White House, even whereas going through 91 felony counts throughout 4 totally different prosecutions. At the time of writing, Trump is main the 2024 United States major elections with 20 delegates, steaming forward of fellow presidential nomininees Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, all whereas preventing his quite a few authorized battles,

Ahead of latest ITV documentary Trump: The Return?, we check out Trump’s continuously sophisticated love life, together with his three marriages and the ‘mysterious’ whereabouts of his present spouse, Melania Trump.

Ivana Trump

Trump met first spouse Ivana Trump, née Zelníčková, in New York in 1976, again when then-model Ivana was within the Big Apple for a vogue present. Recalling their fateful first assembly throughout a 2016 interview with the New York Post, Ivana remembered how the businessman had approached her group of pals whereas they waited for a desk in a bar.

She revealed: “[There’s] this tall blond guy with blue eyes. He said: ‘I’m Donald Trump and I see you’re looking for a table. I can help you’. I look at my friends and said: ‘The good news is. we’re going to get a table real fast. The bad news is, this guy is going to be sitting with us.”

According to Czech-American socialite Ivana, Trump later drove them dwelling in his limousine, after which level they started courting. They tied the knot in 1977, in what was an uncharateristically non-public ceremony, and went on to earn a status all through the ’80s as the last word energy couple. Ivana held varied excessive profile positions within the Trump Organisation, together with managing Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel, and performed a key position in constructing the mogul’s real-estate empire.

Ivana later claimed that she was the one who had essentially the most affect when it got here to elevating their three kids Donald Jr,, Ivanka, and Eric. In her memoir Raising Trump, Ivana revealed: “I believe the credit for raising such great kids belongs to me. 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 my ex-husband, ‘Here is the finished product. Now it’s your turn’.”

In 1990, the Trumps hit the headlines on account of their explosive divorce. The drama that ensued later earned Ivana a cameo within the 1996 The First Wives Club, during which she proudly advised the leads, ‘Don’t get mad, get all the things’. Trump’s infidelity was reportedly an element within the divorce, with Ivana later claiming that she knew her marriage was over after working into Marla Maples in 1989 – the actress who would go on to develop into Trump’s second spouse.

In Raising Trump, Ivana remembered their reportedly heated alternate, which came about throughout an Aspen ski journey at Christmastime, writing: “This young blonde woman approached me out of the blue and said ‘I’m Marla and I love your husband. Do you?’ I said, ‘Get lost. I love my husband’. It was unladylike but I was in shock.”

Although their marriage had a fiery finish, its understood Trump and Ivana had been in a position to reconcile their variations, and reportedly had a robust friendship on the time of her demise in 2022 on the age of 73. In a press release posted to his social media platform, Truth Social, following her passing, Trump paid tribute to Ivana, describing her as a ‘fantastic, lovely, and wonderful girl, who led a fantastic and inspirational life’.

Marla Maples

Trump’s relationship with Marla Maples was considered scandalous because the time, with Marla extensively seen because the ‘different girl’ who’d precipitated the cut up between Trump and Ivana. Prior to getting married, Trump offered Marla with a pre-nup that stipulated that, within the occasion of a divorce, Marla would get no alimony, only a comparatively modest payout of $1 million payout. She additionally needed to signal a confidentiality settlement concerning any potential cut up.

As reported by The New York Times, Trump and Marla opted for an opulent marriage ceremony on the iconic Plaza Hotel on December 20, 1993, attended by some 1,000 company and loads of paparazzi. The ceremony came about two months after the start of their daughter, Tiffany Trump, who would go on to assist her father all through his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.

After their divorce in 1999, Marla raised Tiffany in California, in a reported bid to maintain her out of the highlight. During a 2016 interview with People, Marla admitted she felt ‘unhappy’ in regards to the animosity between she and Ivana, who had declared she’d hadn’t forgiven her for her affair with Donald.

Marla, now 60, stated: “It makes me sad because I wish her nothing but love and I’ve never had any intention of hurting her. I love her kids I’m still close to. I love and adore them.” She added: “So, it was sad to hear that. I wish her absolutely the best. I really do, and I hope that if she’s holding any kind of resentment toward me, I really hope, for her sake, that she can forgive me and just love her life.”

Melania Trump

Trump reportedly met his present spouse Melania Trump, née Knauss, whereas on a date with one other girl at a celebration thrown at New York City’s Kit Kat Club in 1998. The Slovenian mannequin would not give him her quantity at first, and so, whereas his date was within the toilet, Trump ‘sneakily’ gave Melania his contact particulars so they might arrange a date.

The couple went on to tie the knot on January 22, 2005, in a star-studded ceremony attended by the likes of Heidi Klum, Elton John, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Trump’s future presidential rival, Hilary Clinton. Melania is regarded by some to be fairly a distinct type of character to Trump’s beforehand two wives. Summing her up in an interview with Vanity Fair, Trump’s good friend and enterprise affiliate Federico Pignatelli, stated: “Ivana was an intelligent, entrepreneurial woman. Also a very strong-minded person and very feisty. While instead, Melania . . . really no fights.”

Six months after their marriage ceremony, Melania grew to become pregnant with their son Barron, now 17. In the identical Vanity Fair article, a supply alleged that Trump agreed to having a child with Melania on the situation that she ‘acquired her physique again” after giving start. Melania confirmed assist for her continuously controversial husband all through his 2016 presidential bid, however insisted that she does not at all times share his views.

Speaking with reporters in Egypt throughout a 2018 solo journey to Africa, Melania stated: “I don’t always agree [with] what he thinks, and I tell him that. I give him my honest opinion and honest advice.” She added: “I have my own voice and my own opinions and it’s very important for me that I express what I feel.”

Melania, 53, has not often been seen in public over the course of the final yr, making a uncommon look in November for the memorial service of fellow former first woman Rosalynn Carter. According to creator Laurence Leamer, who wrote Mar-A-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace, Melania is so not often seen at Trump’s Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago, which can be his official residence, that members are actually speculating as to her whereabouts.

In December, Leamer advised The Telegraph: “Nobody knows where she is. It’s like a mystery. It’s certainly talked about.”

You can catch Trump: The Return? at 9pm, January 16 on ITV1.

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