Donald Trump's first wife Ivana Trump, 73, has died, the former US president said.
Ivana Trump pictured in 2018. Photo: AFP
"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," the Donald Trump said in a post on his social medial platform Truth Social.
Ivana Trump, who was born in what is now 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.
"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 quoted by ABC News. She grew up under Communist rule in the former Czechoslovakia.
Eric Trump also posted on Instagram, saying Ivana Trump was and incredible woman and "a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend."
Donald and Ivana Trump 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, Ivana 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 Trump had improved since their divorce, and said she spoke to him about once a week.
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 Trump while with a group of models. They were married the following year and quickly became a tabloid fixture.
Over the course of their marriage, Ivana Trump held several roles within the Trump Organisation, including as manager of the iconic Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
But Donald 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, Ivana Trump had signed a non-disclosure agreement but also received US$14m and a mansion in Connecticut among other things.
She was married twice more: to Italian businessman Riccardo Mazzucchelli, from 1995 to 1997; and, to Italian actor Rossano Rubicondi, from 2008 to 2009.
Neither the Trump family statement nor the post from the former president mentioned the cause of her death.
The New York Times, citing unnamed law enforcement officials, said it appeared accidental and she may have fallen down the stairs.
The Fire Department of New York said paramedics responded to a call to her apartment for a cardiac arrest.
- BBC / Reuters
