Vanessa Trump: who is Donald Trump Jr.’s low-profile ex-wife, a former model who dated Leonardo DiCaprio and filed for divorce soon after she inherited millions?
The mother-of-five is a former model who dated movie stars and appeared alongside Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in blockbuster romcom Something’s Gotta Give
She divorced Donald Jr. in 2018, a year after inheriting an estimated US$62 million fortune from her dad’s stake in Rao’s Homemade pasta sauce
Vanessa Trump has slipped further out of the spotlight since Donald Trump took to the White House in 2017, but she has had plenty of moments to shine in the past. So what do we know about Donald Trump Jr.’s ex-wife?
Vanessa’s net worth
Now 43, Vanessa is a former model who grew up on the Upper East Side of New York City and attended a US$50,000-a-year school. While she reportedly dated a gang member in her younger years, according to Page Six, Vanessa became a tabloid fixture in 1998, when she was 20 and rumoured to be dating Leonardo DiCaprio.
While her work as a model for almost a decade could have earned her millions, and she reportedly had a chance at being a princess when she dated Saudi diplomat Prince Khalid bin Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud, it was her late father’s fortune that made Vanessa financially secure. In 1992 her high-profile lawyer dad Charles Rendon invested US$1 million in Rao’s Homemade, a pasta sauce branded after America’s popular Rao’s Italian restaurant group. According to Celebrity Net Worth, when the product was acquired by a competitor 25 years later, Vanessa’s inherited share was worth US$62 million, pre-tax.
Vanessa’s wedding
The windfall for Vanessa’s family came a year before she filed for divorce from Donald Trump Jr. after 13 years of marriage. The two were introduced by Donald Trump Sr. backstage at a fashion show in 2003 – the same year she appeared in Something’s Gotta Give with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton – and the couple tied the knot in 2005.
Her US$100,000 engagement ring was a freebie scored after Trump Jr. staged a photo op of himself popping the question outside a jewellery store in a New Jersey mall, according to the New York Post. The pair got married in a ceremony officiated by Trump Sr.’s sister Maryanne at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Vanessa’s children
Don Jr. and Vanessa had five children together: Donald John III, Kai Madison, Tristan Milos, Chloe Sophia and Spencer Frederick. While Vanessa dabbled in a handbag line for a few years, it seems being a stay-at-home mother is her full-time job now. Her Twitter feed is pretty much all about her being a parent and she says “my children are my life”. Vanessa has also been home-schooling her kids during the pandemic. She says it “isn’t easy” but it’s clear they are her first priority.
Vanessa and Instagram
Vanessa doesn’t have an Instagram account but social media backs up the fact that she and Don Jr. “have tremendous respect for each other”, as her representative told Vanity Fair after she filed for divorce. Don Jr. shared a Christmas 2020 Instagram gallery that suggested his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle even hangs out with the exes and their kids.
