INTERNATIONAL: 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. She grew up under Communist rule in the former Czechoslovakia.
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.
The Fire Department of New York said paramedics responded to a call to her apartment for a cardiac arrest.
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.
She spent much of her youth in competitive skiing for the Czechoslovakian national system, later competing for Charles University in Prague, where she earned a master's degree in physical education and languages, according to her biography posted by CMG Worldwide, a business agency for celebrities that represented her.
Ivana Trump played a role in building up the Trump media image in the 1980s, when they were one of New York City's most prominent power couples.
While Donald Trump took the credit for his early success breaking into the highly competitive Manhattan real estate market, Ivana Trump also filled an important role in the family business soon after their marriage.
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, the Times said.
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.
She married three other times, including once before she met Trump in what she described as a Cold War marriage to obtain an Austrian passport. Her two later marriages also ended in divorce.
