DONALD TRUMP AND THE WOMEN: A STORY OF LOVE AND MILLIONS
The country used to hiding the amorous skeletons of its presidents faces the romantic and publicized past of the most unexpected candidate.
Donald and Ivana turned the Trump brand into a two-headed hydra that has laminated New York with gold sconces and reddish marble and has defined the excess of the eighties better than any singularity.
Almost 25 years ago, a Texan millionaire shook the traditional North American bipartisanship. His name was Ross Perot and he managed to put Democrats and Republicans in trouble thanks to a personalist campaign funded by his immense fortune. No, Donald Trump is not the first wealthy eccentric to run for president of the most powerful country. The difference is that this time he does it backed by one of the majority parties. Or at least on the basis of it.
The candidacy that in June 2015 seemed like a joke, has become a reality after the abandonment of Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Donad Trump, the millionaire best known for his television appearances, his fondness for stunning women and his mouth as colossal as his fortune will almost certainly be the Republican candidate for the 2016 elections .
And if the personal life of the Clintons seemed to be, a priori, one of Hillary's weak points, that on the other side of the ring they feel like a divorced candidate, with five children from three different wives and a foreign first lady who has posed naked, seems to balance the scale. It is clear that times have changed, also among the Republicans of the Tea Party. the most conservative wing of a party that now turns its amazed eyes to the amorous past of an uncontrollable candidate.
IVANA, THE EX WHO KEPT IT ALL
"Don't get mad, get everything." Or what is (almost) the same: "Do not stay angry, keep everything." That is the most remembered phrase of Ivana in that ode to the survival of divorced women that is The Club of the First Wives. And that's what she did, or at least she attempted in one of the most famous divorces in history.
Born in the former Czechoslovakia and with a certain talent for skiing, the only options for Ivana to reach the western dream that she had been able to meet while competing were through desertion - which would have meant retaliation for her family - or marriage. The practicality of it that has characterized her made her choose the path of the altar and in 1971 she married the Austrian Alfred Winklmayr. With him she moved to Canada where she began a modeling career that in 1976 took her to New York to promote the Montreal Olympics. And it was there, where Ivana, already divorced from her first husband, met the man who was going to change her life.
What follows is part of the legend of America in the last quarter of the 20th century. Donald and Ivana turned the Trump brand into a two-headed hydra that has laminated New York with gold sconces and reddish marble and has defined the excess of the eighties better than any singularity. If until then Donald was just another billionaire playboy and bully from the East Coast, his marriage to Ivana elevated him to iconic status and led them to make the covers of the tabloids and dazzle a society hungry for achievers.
And who better than a renegade ex-communist. They were the years of the cold war. Ivan Drago succumbed to Rocky's fists and a communist girl honored the god of capitalism by coating with gold every hall that the tycoon put in his way. But in 1991 the marriage that already had three children in common, Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric, came to an end because of Trump's infidelities.
And if Ivana had been tenacious as an executive, she too was going to be fighting for half of Trump's shaky fortune. The legal battle delighted the American people and came to an end due to the sudden death of Ivana's father. Donald accompanied her to her funeral and after sealing the peace they have remained good friends. In 1997 they even participated in a pizza commercial in which they fought over the last slice (we know that they are that kind of person in private).
And currently he is one of the supporters of the aspiring president who is not lagging behind in outbursts. When asked by a journalist about the immigration policy of her ex-husband, her answer was that the United States needs legal immigrants "because who is going to clean our rooms?" We don't understand why Donald takes so long to nominate her as a vice president candidate.
After her divorce, Ivana has become a trademark thanks to her business and her books on overcoming her. And she has starred in loud romances with young men. "I'd rather be a babysitter than a nurse," she declared during her marriage to Italian presenter Rossano Rubicondi, twenty-three years her junior.
MARLA MAPLES, THE ONE WHO DID NOT TAKE ANY LAST NAME
With the savoir faire and discretion that characterizes him, Trump had no better idea than to host his lover Marla Maples in an Aspen hotel near the one he shared with his wife Ivana. The result was the meeting of both on the ski slopes, the same ones in which Donald had declared to Ivana sixteen years before, a loud fight (some say even physical) and enough covers to paper the Trump tower.
Ivana, who refused to look the other way, filed for divorce and Marla went on to become the tycoon's second wife. Former Miss Georgia, 16 years his junior, aspiring actress and, of course, blonde, Marla was far removed from the media whirlwind in which Ivana was so comfortable. And, although according to those close to Trump, the marriage did not pass through her mind, after Marla's pregnancy and the signing of a very favorable prenuptial agreement they were promised. In 1993 they were getting married in the Plaza before a small number of guests, including Liza Minelli and O.J. Simpson.
But it seems that the serious financial crisis that the Trump companies were going through and the ghost of Ivana caused a distancing of the couple that, coincidentally, led them to divorce a month before the prenuptial agreement expired and Marla had the right to aspire to something more than the two million dollars agreed. Donald is a romantic.
Although her media pull was unmatched by that of her predecessor, she has starred in small television appearances and currently participates in Dancing with the stars alongside other famed celebrities such as the presenter Geraldo Rivera or the Forced Parents actress Jodie Sweetin.
MELANIA TRUMP, THE FUTURE FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES?
Again, a young woman raised in communist territory and eager for capitalist freedom. Melania was born in the former Yugoslavia in 1970 into a middle-class family. One fine day she came across a photographer with a good eye and at 16 years old, her 1.80 was already parading in Milan. From Milan to New York. And from there, she into the arms of the best model scout since Eileen Ford.
Donald met her at a party and in a few months they confirmed her romance in The apprentice, the reality show to Trump's greatest glory. A true master of synergies. And in 2005 they were getting married in Palm Beach. Melania wore a Galliano design with four meters of train and rhinestones that required more than a thousand hours to make and whose value exceeded one hundred thousand euros.
On the guest list were celebrities like Anna Wintour, Bruce Willis or, unusually if we think about the present, Bill and Hillary Clinton. A year later, her fifth child, William Barron Trump, was born.
Although the gossips affirm that neither Donald nor her advisers want her near the electoral campaign, what transcends is that Melania prefers to focus on the role of mother and wife of her. Although it seems difficult to sell as a new Barbara Bush - the endearing grandmother who bakes gingerbread cookies - a woman who has posed for Vogue seven months pregnant and covered in a bare gold bikini or nude for GQ.
Probably Melania's past as a model is one of the main protagonists of an electoral campaign that is expected to be harsh and, perhaps, boycotted from the Republican sector itself. Although if we stick to her words, the candidate seems the least affected by this or any other controversy: "You know, it doesn't really matter what they say about you, as long as you have a young and beautiful ass by your side."
