What do you think of when you think of the term “power couple?” Some people imagine couples like Barack and Michelle Obama, who still seem very intimate and connected after all these years of marriage. However, when it comes to real “power,” it’s hard not to think of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. They began wealthy and only got richer over time, especially after they began to benefit from Ivanka’s time as a presidential advisor during Donald Trump’s first term in the White House.
Whenever the cameras are rolling, Ivanka and Jared seem like the perfect couple, from their gleaming smiles to their beaming children. However, this couple has had quite a few specific moments over the years. So many, in fact, that we can’t help but wonder just how strong this relationship is behind closed doors.
Don’t believe it? Keep reading to discover the wildest things about Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s relationship!
They broke up once before
These days, it’s almost impossible to imagine Ivanka Trump without Jared Kushner. This married couple has been together so long that they now seem inseparable. However, before they got married, they actually broke up in 2008. As reported in Kushner’s own book Breaking History: A White House Memoir, he had been dating Ivanka for a year, but “When I realized that I was falling in love with Ivanka, I grew concerned about our different religions. As hard and painful as it was, I broke up with her.”
Obviously, they resolved those religious differences (more on that very soon), but many would consider this early break-up a major sign. And it gets worse: The New Yorker reported that a major contributing factor to the break-up was that Kushner’s parents didn’t approve of Ivanka and that she was disappointed he didn’t fight back on her behalf. Sure, they got together later, but this relationship was seemingly built on a foundation of major differences and meddling parents…never a good sign.
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Ivanka Trump’s religious conversion
At this point, you may be asking how Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner ever got together if it was religious differences that drove them apart. The short answer is that Ivanka converted to Judaism. According to Kushner’s memoir, she expressed a willingness to convert, and after she did so, things moved fast: following their 2008 break-up, these two got engaged in July 2009 and then married a few months later, in October.
Interestingly, one of the people who saw this as a potential warning was Donald Trump. Kushner wrote that the older man asked the obvious questions when they spoke about the matter: “Why does she have to convert? Why can’t you convert?” Jared maintained that it was her decision and her decision alone, but it’s hard to not religious conversion as a requirement to a relationship as a major signal.
Some really weird date nights
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are both richer than God, so you might imagine that their date nights are truly extravagant. And it’s true that their mutual wealth has helped fund some truly exotic travels all around the world. But as Vogue reports, Ivanka’s own description of their regular trysts sounds less than romantic: “My husband’s idea of a date night somehow always involves me looking at one of his development sites … All of a sudden I find myself standing on the roof of the Whole Foods in Gowanus in the pouring rain. At midnight. And he’s showing me this giant site he just bought.”
If you’re wondering, Ivanka seemed less than impressed by these stunts, often thinking to herself “Huh. So this is why you chose that restaurant.” If that’s not enough of a wake-up call, Kushner went on to compare their relationship to a business, saying that Ivanka “is definitely the CEO of our household, whereas I’m more on the board of directors. We both pick up slack for each other where it’s needed, but she doesn’t want to outsource mothering.”
Date nights that are not-so-humblebrags and a relationship described with boring corporate jargon? From the outside looking in, this certainly doesn’t sound very fun for Ivanka!
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Ivanka Trump often ditches her wedding and engagement rings
As you might expect, Ivanka Trump has some of the fanciest jewelry in the world. This includes a .22-carat cushion-cut diamond engagement ring worth half a million dollars. Despite how fancy it is, Ivanka is often spotted in public without wearing it. Additionally, she skips out on wearing her wedding band more often than you might think.
People reports that Ivanka once gave a simple and very believable reason for not wearing her rings: that, like many of us, she may “forget the hardware” before heading out. That may very well be true. But after all the other signs, we can’t help but wonder if this is Ivanka’s way of rebelling against a marriage that might have long since lost its luster.