Ivana Trump, the former first wife US president Donald Trump, had a net worth of $100 million when she died on Thursday at the age of 73, according to Celebrity Net Worth, which tracks the wealth and finances of the rich and famous.
Born under communist rule in Czechoslovakia in 1949, Ms Trump rose from humble beginnings to become a successful multimillionaire businessperson after her divorce from Mr Trump in 1992 after 15 years of marriage.
As part of their divorce settlement, she received $14m, a 45-room mansion in Connecticut and an apartment in Trump Plaza in New York City, as well as access to Mar-a-Lago four weeks of the year and $650,000 a year to support their three children — Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric, Celebrity Net Worth said.
“Over the course of their marriage, Ivana and Donald had four prenuptial agreements as his empire grew,” it said.
“Donald was reportedly in deep debt at the time of the divorce and was forced to pay for the settlement with bank loans.”
Ms Trump, whose funeral was held on July 21, used the divorce settlement as a springboard to launch two of her own companies — Ivana Inc and Ivana Haute Couture, which sold beauty products, clothing and jewellery through television shopping channels — that generated millions of dollars in earnings.
In the mid-1990s, the former model also started a perfume and fashion company called House of Ivana.
She also published a number of books, including the Best is Yet to Come: Coping with Divorce and Enjoying Life Again, in which she advised readers to “take his wallet to the cleaners”.
Ms Trump also made a cameo appearance in The First Wives Club, a 1996 film starring Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton and Bette Midler, where she offered sage advice to divorced women.
“Ladies, you have to be strong and independent. And remember: don’t get mad, get everything!”
Despite her property management experience at the Trump Organisation during her marriage to Mr Trump — where she was vice president of interior design and president of the Trump Castle Hotel and Casino — she was involved in failed property projects in 2005, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
“[This included] the planned Ivana Las Vegas condominium high rise that was never built,” it said.
Last year, Mr Trump dropped out of the 2021 Forbes 400 list of America’s richest people for the first time in 25 years after failing to make the cut by $400m.
With a net worth of about $2.5 billion, Mr Trump’s fortune, which is mostly tied up in property through the Trump Organisation, had fallen by $600m since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Forbes.
“Technology stocks, cryptocurrencies and other assets have thrived in the Covid era,” Forbes said at the time. “But big-city properties — which make up the bulk of Trump’s fortune — have languished, knocking the former president out of the nation’s most exclusive club.”
The Forbes 400 list is an annual compilation of the richest Americans who own assets in the US and ranks them by their net worth. The list, which was first published in 1982, requires a minimum net worth of $2.9bn, up $800m in 2020.
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