Ivana Trump died on July 14, 2022, and her death shocked the world. This isn’t surprising: she was as much an icon as her famous ex-husband, Donald Trump. And many still remember when she helped build a legacy for Donald Trump that eventually led to the White House.
It’s fair to say that Ivana led an extraordinary life, and it’s no wonder that her funeral was just as extraordinary. Here we discuss Ivana Trump’s funeral: who showed up, what was said, and what Ivana’s close friends revealed about her recent health and cause of death.
Ivana Trump’s funeral service celebrated her life
Ivana Trump was a wealthy icon in life who truly took the world by storm. This, combined with the fact that her funeral service was held at St. Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church, might make you think the funeral would be a very solemn event.
However, this was far from the case because it would be the last thing Ivana wanted. According to People, her daughter Ivanka Trump said that “My mother hated funerals. She wanted to celebrate life.”
Therefore, Ivana’s own funeral was more of a celebration than a mournful occasion. The service was invite-only, so many of the guests knew each other and were very comfortable interacting. One person in attendance was society columnist R. Couri Hay, who reported, “The room was filled with joy and drenched with tears.”
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Ivana Trump was buried at a golf club
A room filled with both “joy” and “tears” may seem to be a contradiction, but embodying contradictions has always been part of the Trump lifestyle. And there was quite a bit of contradiction between Ivana’s funeral service and her final resting place.
For example, the actual service was a Catholic Mass. St. Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church looked downright stately, complete with a large mound of roses and 73 lit candles (one for each year of Ivana’s life). And her gold-toned casket spoke to both Ivana’s immense wealth and her status as a kind of American royalty.
However, after the funeral service, Daily Mail reports that there was Ivana was laid to rest at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster after a burial service. People might wonder why someone as important and influential as Ivana Trump was ultimately buried at a golf club. However, this particular golf club is Donald Trump’s favorite property, and the Washington Post reported in 2017 that he wanted to build a 10-plot cemetery for his family there. Furthermore, he wishes for this club to be his own final resting place.
There is something sweet about the fact that Donald Trump apparently intends to be buried so close to his first wife. Just as sweet were the moving eulogies given by Ivana’s children.
Ivana’s children gave moving eulogies
During the funeral service, Donald Trump did not offer any words (he waited to do so until the more private burial service). However, Ivana’s children took the opportunity to offer some moving words about her life and her influence.
According to The Cut, Eric Trump summed his mother’s life up very nicely: “She had brains, she had beauty, and she had grit.” As for Donald Trump, Jr., he said, “There was nothing that she could not achieve, no obstacle that she could not surmount.”
Perhaps the most emotional of the children’s eulogies came from Ivanka Trump. She called her mother a “trailblazer, admired by men and women alike.” Remembering how much Ivana enjoyed a good party, Ivanka said, “Now, she’s watching us from above, telling us to dry our eyes, have a good time, and dance one more song for her. Mom, I love you today, every day.”
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Donald Trump reveals how he really feels about Ivana’s death
As we noted before, Donald Trump did not offer any formal words during the funeral service. Instead, he spoke at the more private burial service. But thanks to an interview with The New York Post, we know how Donald really feels about the death of Ivana Trump.
“She was outstanding. Beautiful inside and out. We began all of it, our lives together, with such a great relationship,” he said. And regarding what first attracted him to Ivana, Donald said, “She was different… she never gave up.”
Finally, he offered his own summary of Ivana as both a woman and a force of nature. “Beautiful, yes, but she was also a hard worker. No matter how rough things were or how badly they looked she never fell down. She went from communism to our lives together. She took nothing for granted.”
Tiffany Trump attended Ivana’s funeral but Marla Maples did not
It’s an open secret that there is a lot of drama in the Trump family. One primary example of this is the alleged beef between Donald Trump and Tiffany Trump. Tiffany is the only daughter of Donald Trump and his second wife, Marla Maples. Frankly, she was never as close to Donald as his other children, and People reports that she grew even more distant after he won the election.
Because of this, many were surprised when Tiffany Trump showed up to Ivana’s funeral along with her fiancé. However, she maintained a very literal distance between herself and the rest of Trump’s children at the funeral.
Tiffany’s mother, Marla Maples, did not show up to the funeral. This was probably for the best: there was always bad blood between Ivana and Marla (not surprising given the widely-held view that an affair with Marla led to Donald divorcing Ivana). Town & Country reports that Ivana summed up her feelings about Marla Maples quite bluntly in an appearance on CBS Sunday Morning, saying “I don’t talk about her. She’s a showgirl. Never achieved anything in her life.”
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Ivana’s friends reveal she had mobility issues and a dangerous staircase
Part of what made Ivana’s death so shocking was that, at 73, she wasn’t that old. However, a close friend revealed to The New York Post that she hadn’t been feeling well lately and was having mobility issues.
“There was something going on with her hip, she couldn’t walk,” Ivana’s friend of over 15 years Zach Erdem said. In fact, her health issues made her cancel her planned visit to his Southhampton restaurant 75 Main restaurant earlier this month.
“She was going to come two weeks ago, but she was feeling bad.… She said she wasn’t feeling well,” Erdem recalled. “She said she was having pain in her leg.… She couldn’t get out of her house.”
It is unknown if Ivana’s mobility issues contributed to the accident that caused her death.
According to The New York Times, Ivana died from blunt force injuries to her body (primarily her torso) after falling down the stairs of her home. In retrospect, one thing that makes this tragedy worse is that some of Ivana’s friends might have seen it coming!
In an interview with The New York Post, Ivana’s close friend Nikki Haskell revealed that she always worried about those stairs. “I was always so upset about that staircase. I hated those stairs. They were so treacherous. We worried about her falling.”
To make matters worse, Haskell said that while Ivana had an elevator, she simply preferred to use the stairs. As for Haskell, the stairs were one of the reasons she didn’t stay with Ivana very often. “Friends used to say to me, ‘Why don’t you stay with Ivana when you’re in New York?’ But you couldn’t pay me to hang out there and go up and down those stairs.”