Ivana Trump walked out on Donald Trump’s inauguration because she was horrified she had been assigned a “very bad seat”, according to a report. The former president’s late ex-wife was “in shock” at the seat she was given at the 2017 ceremony in Washington DC, says New York magazine.
Ivana, who married Mr Trump in 1977 and divorced him in 1992, died last month at the age of 73 after falling at her New York City home.
Massimo Gargia, who introduced Ivana to her fourth husband, Rossano Rubicondi, told New York magazine’s Intelligencer that she had been less than impressed when she arrived at the US Capitol.
“In Washington for the inauguration, she had a very bad seat. So she left. She was in shock to see where they put her. It was a little exclusion,” he said.
The New York Post said at the time that Ivana had left the event so she did not see Marla Maples, who was married to Mr Trump from 1993 to 1999.
“(Ivana) had planned to go out and celebrate after the swearing-in, but when she found out that Marla was going, she cancelled,” a source told the newspaper.
According to Intelligencer, Ivana was shocked at her treatment, especially as she had defended Mr Trump during his campaign against allegations of sexual misconduct.
The then-businessman and the model reportedly first met in 1976 at a bar in the city called Maxwell’s Plum, and after a whirlwind romance, the pair tied the knot just nine months later in 1977.
It was Mr Trump’s first marriage, and the couple had three children together, Donald Trump Jr, Ivanka and Eric.
During the 1980s the couple became a fixture in the New York social scene, with Ivana serving as the VP of interior design for the Trump Organization and helping with projects such as Trump Tower and the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in New Jersey’s Atlantic City.
When her husband bought Manhattan’s iconic 808-room Plaza Hotel in 1988 for $400m, she oversaw its renovation, with Mr Trump paying her “$1 and all the dresses she can buy.”
But despite their fame and wealth, the couple’s relationship hit the rocks with Mr Trump linked to Maples.
Ms Trump eventually won a reported $14m, a mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, an apartment in Trump Plaza and the use of Mar-a-Lago in the divorce, which was finalized in1992.
She dated Rubicondi, an Italian model and actor, for six years before the pair tied the knot in April 2008 in a ceremony hosted by Mr Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The couple divorced a year later but were involved in a relationship until 2019, and he died at the age of 49 in 2021.
