In an earlier candid interview that resurfaced this week the late Ivana Trump, first wife of President Donald Trump, openly shared which of the two women who married Trump after her she preferred. Speaking years ago with CBS’s Sunday Morning, Ivana sharply contrasted Marla Maples, Trump’s second wife, with Melania Trump, the first lady, calling Maples a “nobody” while voicing approval of Melania.
When questioned about both women, Ivana responded bluntly: “One is a nobody, the other is First Lady.” Her remark summed up her long-standing tension toward Maples, whose relationship with Donald Trump in the late 1980s ultimately triggered Ivana’s highly public divorce from him in 1990. They had been married since 1977 and were considered a prominent couple in New York society.
Ivana and Donald Trump shared three children—Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric—who later became key figures in their father’s business ventures and political campaigns. Even after their difficult split, Ivana and Trump maintained a polite relationship for many years. The former president spoke warmly about her at her 2022 funeral. She passed away at age 73, and Trump noted at the service that she never gave up and never took anything for granted.
The resurfaced interview showed how deeply Ivana’s resentment toward Maples remained. When CBS correspondent Jim Axelrod brought up Trump’s second wife, Ivana firmly said she did not wish to talk about her. She referred to Maples as “a showgirl” who had achieved nothing in life and refused even to say her name during the interview.
Her anger stemmed from a highly publicized moment during a 1989 ski trip to Aspen. In her memoir “Raising Trump,” Ivana described a confrontation on the slopes in which Maples approached her, professed her love for Donald Trump, and asked Ivana whether she loved her husband. Ivana told her to get lost, later calling the encounter shocking and out of character for her.
Trump acknowledged the Aspen confrontation in a 1994 interview, noting visible tension between the two women, though no yelling took place. The incident effectively ended his marriage to Ivana, who filed for divorce the following year. Trump married Maples in 1993; they divorced in 1999 and share a daughter, Tiffany Trump.
In the same 1994 interview, Trump expressed some regret about the affair, praising the life he and Ivana once shared. He suggested that without the relationship with Maples, his first marriage might have lasted, saying he had a beautiful wife, a beautiful girlfriend, and a beautiful life—everything felt like a bowl of cherries, he reflected.
Yet in her CBS interview, Ivana notably did not hold Donald responsible for the affair. When Axelrod asked if she blamed Maples but not Trump, Ivana said that Maples had been flirtatious and had simply succeeded. She added that women constantly pursued Trump, claiming he collected a thousand business cards nightly and could choose any woman he wanted.
Unlike her stance toward Maples, Ivana showed no ill will toward Melania Trump. Her acceptance may have partly come from Melania’s role as first lady during Trump’s presidency, a position Ivana seemed to respect. Maintaining cordial relations also helped the three children she shared with Trump, who remained important in both parents’ lives.
Trump met Melania in 1998 while still dealing with divorce matters involving Maples. After a relationship that had its ups and downs, he proposed to Melania at the Met Gala in 2004. They wed in Palm Beach, Florida, with notable guests like Rudy Giuliani, Barbara Walters, and President Bill Clinton in attendance. The couple shares one son, Barron Trump.
When Trump took office in 2017, Melania became the first foreign-born first lady since Louisa Adams in 1829, wife of President John Quincy Adams. Ivana expressed pride in her children’s involvement in their father’s political career, with Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric frequently appearing at campaign events and taking on roles during both of Trump’s administrations.
The dynamics among Trump’s three wives highlighted the complex personal history of a man married three times while remaining constantly in the public eye. Ivana’s straightforward comparison of Maples and Melania provided a window into how she managed her own identity as Trump’s first wife while watching two other women take on the role she once held.
