Donald Trump's first wife, Ivana, dies at 73

Ivana Trump, the first wife of former U.S. President Donald Trump and the mother of his three oldest children, who helped her husband build some of his signature buildings including Trump Tower, died on Thursday at age 73, Donald Trump announced.

"I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City," Trump said in a post on the social medial platform Truth Social.

The couple married in 1977 and divorced in 1992. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.

"Ivana Trump was a survivor. She fled from communism and embraced this country. She taught her children about grit and toughness, compassion and determination," the Trump family said in a statement. 

Neither the Trump family statement nor the post from the former president mentioned the cause of death, but a police spokesperson said she was found dead on the stairs inside her apartment and that foul play was not suspected.

Heartbroken by the passing of my mother. Mom was brilliant, charming, passionate and wickedly funny. She lived life to the fullest — never forgoing an opportunity to laugh and dance.

I will miss her forever and will keep her memory alive in our hearts always. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/EyhrLNLUJw

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) July 14, 2022

She was born Ivana Marie Zelnickova on Feb. 20, 1949, in Gottwaldov, Czechoslovakia, the town where she grew up near Prague that is now known as Zlin in the Czech Republic.

While on a modeling trip to New York in 1976, she met Donald Trump and they were married nine months later.

She worked alongside her husband in developing Trump Tower, his signature building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and other high-profile projects such as the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Ivana Trump was the vice president for interior design for the Trump Organization and managed the historic Plaza Hotel, which Trump acquired in 1988 all while raising their three children.

In her divorce settlement, Ivana Trump received $14 million plus $650,000 per year to support their three children, a 45-room mansion in Connecticut, an apartment in Trump Plaza, and use of the Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida for one month a year, the New York Times reported.

Whatever their previous differences, Ivana Trump supported her former husband's run for the White House in 2016, telling interviewers she periodically offered him advice.

She told CBS television in 2017 that Trump offered her the ambassadorship to the Czech Republic but that she turned it down.

Ivana Trump is survived by her mother, her three children and 10 grandchildren, the family statement said.