How Ivana Trump Discovered Donald's Affair With Marla Maples
Before he was a twice-impeached president of the U.S., Donald Trump was a real estate mogul known for his reality TV show "The Apprentice," as well as his philandering ways. Since the 1970s, The Don has been linked to several beautiful women (beginning with his first wife, the late Czech-American socialite Ivana Trump), but that didn't stop him from cheating.
Donald was accused of multiple accounts of sexual misconduct while married to Ivana, which surfaced later on after the two were divorced. In 2016, Jessica Leeds told the New York Times of a situation where Donald "grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt" when the pair were seated together on a flight in the 1980s. In 2019, columnist E. Jean Carroll said that the TV personality sexually abused her in a department store during the 1990s, per NBC News. Arguably, the most well-known example of Donald's infidelity is the very public affair with model Marla Maples that ended his marriage to Ivana for good.
News of the affair was literally front and center, with the New York Post infamously running the quote from Maples that it was the best sex she'd ever had. The media circus was humiliating for Ivana, not to mention traumatic for her three children, Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric Trump. But how did Ivana figure out her then-husband was cheating on her with Maples in the first place?
Marla Maples confronted Ivana Trump about Donald
Marla Maples wasn't one for hiding and didn't work too hard to keep her affair with Donald Trump under wraps. The opposite, actually — she came right out with it! As Ivana Trump detailed in her memoir, "Raising Trump" (via E! News), the socialite recalled being on vacation with her family at a ski resort in 1989 when she was confronted by Maples. "This young blond woman came up to me out of the blue and said, 'I'm Marla and I love your husband. Do you?'" Ivana wrote. Despite reacting defensively and telling Marla to "get lost," Ivana knew this moment was the beginning of the end. "As far as I was concerned, the marriage ended that day at Bonnie's," she added.
But Ivana's account might not have been an accurate representation of how things went down between the two ladies. According to OK!, eyewitnesses remember the exchange a little differently. One person claims Ivana told Marla, "You b**ch, leave my husband alone."
News of the affair was (apparently) a total shock to Ivana, despite the fact that Maples had been a staple in Donald's life at the time, according to Newsweek. But Ivana turned a blind eye to her then-husband's yacht outings and helicopter rides with Maples and maybe found comfort in the fact that Maples' agent debunked any rumors of a romance with Donald, insisting that she "wasn't a homewrecker." OK, but Maples eventually got fed up with pretending.
Did Ivana Trump ever get over the affair?
Up until she died, Ivana Trump never forgave Marla Maples for breaking up her family. Years after splitting from Donald Trump, Maples regretted her actions and attempted to extend an olive branch to Ivana. "[The Daily Mail] called to ask if I accepted [Marla's] apology and I said, 'Apology not accepted.' This woman broke up my marriage and took away my kids' father. I don't care how sorry she is," Ivana wrote in "Raising Trump" (via People).
The businesswoman also detailed another occasion in which she rejected Marla's overtures of friendship, writing that she was "doing just fine with my resentment, thank you very much." And when asked why she was friendly with Melania Trump but not Maples, Ivana told CBS Sunday Morning, "One is nobody. And the other one is [the] First Lady." With all this one-sided animosity flying around, it makes sense that neither Maples nor her daughter attended Ivana's funeral in 2022. (Ivana wouldn't have stood for it!)
For her part, Maples wanted to let bygones be bygones for the sake of Tiffany Trump. The former model encouraged relationships between Tiffany and her half-siblings/Ivana's kids, telling People, "I never let her ever think of them as her half sister or half brother. This is your family," she explained. "They're all so busy, but it was really important with me ... [to] always connect. I do that myself with them. I'll always love them."