Former US president Donald Trump paid respects to his first wife, Ivana Trump, joining their three children on Wednesday at a funeral Mass for the 1980s style idol and businesswoman who helped him to build an empire.
“A very sad day, but at the same time a celebration of a wonderful and beautiful life,” Mr Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, before heading to the funeral. “This will not be easy.”
Mr Trump attended the service with his current wife, Melania.
Donald Trump attends funeral of former wife Ivana
Donald and Ivana Trump’s three children — Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric — and their families followed her gold-coloured coffin into St Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Tiffany Trump, the daughter of the former president and his second wife, Marla Maples, also attended the service.
Family friends including Jeanine Pirro, co-host of Fox News' The Five, and Charles Kushner, a real estate developer and the father of Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner.
Fashion designer Dennis Basso, a longtime friend of Ivana’s, was also among the mourners.
Mr Trump’s family announced on Thursday that Ivana, 73, had died at her Manhattan home.
Authorities said the death was an accident, with blunt impact injuries to her torso as the cause.
“We all want to remember Ivana as the vibrant, sociable person she was,” long-time friend R Couri Hay said before the service.
Ivana and Donald Trump met in the 1970s and were married from 1977 to 1992.
In the 1980s, they were a power couple, and she became well known in her own right, instantly recognisable with her blond hair and her glamorous look.
Ivana also took part in her husband’s businesses, managing one of his Atlantic City casinos and picking out some of the design elements in New York City’s Trump Tower.
Their very public divorce was ugly, but in recent years they were friendly. Ivana was an enthusiastic supporter of Mr Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and said they spoke on a regular basis.
