Credit: Getty Images
Credit: Getty Images

Ivana Trump, Donald Trump’s first wife and mother of three of his children, has died aged 73.

“She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life,” Mr Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social.

Ms Trump, who was born in the Czech Republic, married the former president in 1977. They divorced 15 years later in 1992.

They had three children together – Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump.

The pair were notable public figures in New York in the 1980s and 1990s, and their split was the subject of intense public interest.

After their separation, Ms Trump went on to launch her own lines of beauty products, clothing and jewellery.

She also described raising the three Trump children in her 2017 memoir Raising Trump.

She wrote then that her relationship with Mr Trump had improved since their divorce, and said she spoke to him about once a week.

In a statement, the Trump family lauded her as “a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend”.

“Ivana Trump was a survivor. She fled from communism and embraced this country,” the statement added. “She taught her children about grit and toughness, compassion and determination.”

Mr Trump was her second husband. Her first, Alfred Winklmayr, was an Austrian ski instructor and friend who she reportedly married in order to obtain Austrian citizenship.

That marriage allowed her to leave her communist home country – which was then Czechoslovakia – without defecting.

A long-time skier, Ms Trump is said to have skied competitively in the country.

But claims that she was an alternate on the 1972 Winter Olympics team were refuted in 1989 by a local Olympic official.

While living in Canada in the 1970s, she worked as a ski instructor and model.

Shortly after her move to New York City in 1976, she met Mr Trump while with a group of models. They were married the following year and quickly became a tabloid fixture.

Ivana and Donald Trump at the 1985 Met Gala
Credit: Getty Images Ivana and Donald Trump at the 1985 Met Gala

Over the course of their marriage, Ms Trump held several roles within the Trump Organisation, including as manager of the iconic Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.

But Mr Trump reportedly locked her out of her office at the hotel in 1990 as they sparred over four pre-nuptial agreements.

When the divorce settlement was finalised in 1992, Ms Trump had signed a non-disclosure agreement but also received $14m (£11.8m) and a mansion in Connecticut among other things.

She was also married twice more: to Italian businessman Riccardo Mazzucchelli, from 1995 to 1997; and, to Italian actor Rossano Rubicondi, from 2008 to 2009.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani wrote on Twitter that Ms Trump was “a truly talented, creative and beautiful person” who had “contributed greatly” to his city.

Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter who has covered the Trump family extensively, said she had been “an icon for a lot of women in the 1980s”.

And media personality Piers Morgan described Ms Trump as “a fabulously entertaining lady and great interviewee who remained fiercely loyal to her ex-husband”.