Raising Trump

by Ivana Trump

  -22-

  MOMS WHO DATE

  I wasn’t a nun after Donald and I divorced. Far from it. I love men and enjoy their attention and companionship. I was still a young woman, only forty-two, with half of my life (at least) ahead of me.

  I met my second husband, Riccardo Mazzucchelli, a divorced Italian, at the horse races at Ascot in England a year and a half after the separation in 1991, and liked him right away. He was charming, with piercing blue eyes and a killer smile, but I wasn’t ready to jump into a relationship. I was busy starting up House of Ivana, being a mother, and looking for a new home in Manhattan. Riccardo tried to win me over by sending me a room full of red roses, but I kept him at arm’s length for a while. We’d meet for a drink here and there, but we didn’t kiss until our fifteenth date. Instead, we walked the streets of Rome and London at night to gaze at the moon and stars. We rode around St. Moritz in a horse and carriage and walked hand in hand through the old city in Prague.

  It truly was romantic—the stuff of novels.

  In fact, my novel For Love Alone was inspired in part by Riccardo. When Lifetime made a movie of it, he stood next to me for my cameo. He also had a split second of screen time in The First Wives Club, the Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, and Bette Midler blockbuster, when I delivered the line, “Don’t get mad, get everything.”

  The first time he proposed, Riccardo gave me a beautiful diamond, but I said no. I didn’t need a husband. I already had a family, a career, and my own money. I did need and want love and friendship (and sex), which Riccardo already gave me, and I made sure he knew how much I enjoyed his company. A few years went by, and we were still together and very much in love. When he proposed a second time, he gave me a gorgeous sapphire ring, and I said yes.

  Don, Ivanka, and Eric were in my wedding to Riccardo on June 17, 1995, at the restaurant Le Cirque in the lobby of the Mayfair Hotel on East Sixty-Fifth Street between Madison and Park Avenues. Thierry made my dress, which was gorgeous baby-blue satin, long-sleeved, knee-length, with a deep V and a nipped-in waist. My hat by Philip Treacy was a marvel of white satin, white feathers, and diamond-shaped mesh. Ivanka, then thirteen, wore a gold dress that was as slinky as mermaid scales. Diana Ross, Barbara Walters, Shirley Lord—all my friends were there. It was a cold night but very warm and loving inside.

  Riccardo was instrumental in helping me rejoin the world and find happiness again after the ugly divorce. I didn’t make a big deal of his being my boyfriend. I gradually and naturally worked Riccardo into my home and life. The kids never complained or said, “But, Mom, it’s too soon.” They trusted me, and they knew I was cognizant of what I was doing. As long as Riccardo was nice to me, they were happy for me. He never tried to replace the kids’ father or asked them to call him “Dad” or “Uncle Riccardo.” He was just “Riccardo.” He respected their relationships with Donald, and like me, he never said a bad word about him in front of the kids. From day one, they saw Riccardo as a friend—not exactly a father figure, but a grown man who loved to cook and laugh, someone to talk to and play sports with.

  We bought a house at 16 Cadogan Square in London, formerly owned by a carpet mogul. The outside entrance had iron French doors, and the house had a huge master bedroom, a lovely staircase, a living room overlooking Cadogan Square, a library, and a leopard room, with spotted upholstery and wallpaper and feline art. I have one in every house. I guess I identify with the strength of the leopard. We split our time between New York and London, so Riccardo could be close to his son, Fedele.

  Fedele, whom I called Deli, was Riccardo’s adult son from his previous marriage. A heavyset young man, Deli was in his early twenties when we met. After his apartment in Japan burned down (not sure what happened there), Deli flew to London, where he had a seizure, was hospitalized, and was put in a straitjacket. He had a long history of erratic and destructive behavior, and during that hospitalization, he was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was given medication, and if he forgot or chose not to take it, it could send him flying out of control. He used his black-belt karate skills to flip tables and break the furniture in restaurants. Once, he grabbed his father by the throat in front of me. I yelled at him to release Riccardo, and he did. Deli was a little afraid of me.

  My children were afraid of Deli, and with good reason. Once, Riccardo, my kids, Deli, and I went to Greenwich together. Deli had ten years and fifty pounds on Don, who was fifteen or sixteen at the time. The kids were outside running around on the lawn, and God only knows why but Deli chased Don, caught him, threw him to the ground, jumped on top of him, and choked him. Don fought him off and told me what had happened. I freaked out and told Riccardo to keep his son away from my kids. He took Deli back to London, and he was never near my children again.

  Poor Don. He really got the brunt of everything. The broken leg as a toddler, getting spanked more than the others. He was old enough to really suffer during the divorce. He had to shoulder the responsibility of finding Bridget after her heart attack. And then the near choking by his unstable stepbrother. No wonder Don likes to go in the woods and escape from everything.

  Deli’s doctors were in London, and Riccardo rightly felt he needed to be there for his son; Deli’s Japanese wife, who was dying of brain cancer; and Deli’s baby daughter (and my goddaughter), Katrina. I felt that I needed to stay in New York to raise my kids and grow my business. We tried to see each other as often as possible. In an effort to keep connected, I made him a partner at Ivana Inc., and he became more and more obsessed with my home shopping business. He pushed me to put in more hours and do more to sell my products. Then he tried to fire my financial people and company staffers I trusted, saying that they weren’t loyal to me. I felt like I was fighting battles with my husband to protect my staff, and the stress just built up to the point where I couldn’t have him in the office or at home. My assistant came over and we packed up his luggage and locked him out of the town house. He went back to London and that was that. After six years together and twenty months as husband and wife, we divorced in 1997.

  There was just too much baggage and stress working against us, and eventually his family tragedy and our rocky business partnership drove a wedge between us. He had to be in London for his son and granddaughter. I had to be in New York for my kids and business. It was a shame, and a relief, that we had to part. I didn’t grieve afterward very much. After all the turmoil, I enjoyed the peace.

  We remain good friends—I’m friends with all of my exes. To this day, he’s monumentally supportive of his son and granddaughter. They all live in Croatia; Riccardo bought Deli, who is doing better, an apartment in Split. I went to visit him last year to see a new resort that Riccardo opened. He’s a decent man and we had a great relationship, until we didn’t.

  • • •

  A couple of years after Riccardo and I got divorced, I met Roffredo Gaetani di Laurenzana dell’Aquila d’Aragona Lovatelli, an Italian prince, count, and duke from Rome. We met in Monaco in 1998. I hated Monaco. It’s a sunny place for shady people who want to avoid paying taxes, and, at least then, it was filthy! The big cruise ships would come in and dump their garbage in the ocean right outside the city. I had a friend there who water-skied and was always having trouble with her breathing. I told her, “It’s because you go into the garbage water!”

  I was there that year for the Grand Prix, a Formula One auto race through the city. One of my best friends, Italian jet-setter Massimo Gargia, had a big party on the terrace of the Hôtel de Paris and I went with eight guests, including a man I’ll call Gary, a wealthy American who was after me like crazy. Massimo introduced me to Roffredo, the president of Ferrari Long Island. He was handsome and tall, from an important family (Giovanni “Gianni” Agnelli, owner of Fiat, was like an uncle to him), and single. Massimo sat Roffredo and me next to each other at the main table and banished Gary to Siberia on the other side of the room. Gary was furious!

  Roffredo and I hit it off, and I invited him to join some of my friends an
d me on my yacht for a trip to Cap Ferrat the next day to rendezvous with a Swedish friend of mine named Henrik, a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed man mountain. About five minutes before we shipped off, Roffredo showed up and jumped aboard. Gary was so angry to see him, he left in a huff and never set foot on my yacht again. (He didn’t need to: he turned around and bought his own yacht and rented it to my friend Clive Davis.)

  At Cap Ferrat, Henrik came in on his sailboat to meet us and have lunch. I sat between Roffredo, a slim, dark Italian, and Henrik, a huge Viking, and wondered, Which one shall I choose? As is often the case with Trumps, the decision came down to location, location, location. Henrik lived in Zurich. Over my dead body would I live there! But Roffredo lived in New York, so I thought, I’ll give him a chance.

  After our first date, Roffredo sent me a case of Brunello di Montalcino from his family vineyard. But when the case arrived, there was no note. I didn’t know who to send a thank-you to! We bumped into each other a few months later and he asked, “How’d you like the wine?”

  “That was you?”

  Any confusion over how we felt about that first date was cleared up, and we had dinner the next night . . . and were inseparable for the next five years. He had a house on East Sixty-Third between Fifth and Madison, and I lived at East Sixty-Fourth Street one block away. After several months, he moved in with me.

  Roffredo was a fabulous guy and a great lover, fun and intelligent, really gorgeous, with big shoulders and a small waist. Riccardo had a smaller build than Roffredo, and Donald was chubbier. I can always tell when Donald’s weight goes up and down between 235 and 215. But Roffredo, a boxer, never gained a pound. He was lean and muscled. Being in shape was important to him, and to me. His style, though, needed some help. Roffredo hung out at Cipriani downtown with his Italian friends who all wore jogging suits, jeans, and T-shirts. I said, “If you want to go out with me, you need real clothes.” Some of his father’s custom-made Italian suits were hanging in Roffredo’s closet, so he started wearing them. They fit him like a glove. Before long, he was named one of the best-dressed men in France.

  There was conflict, as there always is. Gianni Agnelli, Roffredo’s “uncle,” was very possessive of him. Gianni’s only son, Edoardo, jumped off a bridge in Turin and killed himself not long after Roffredo and I started seeing each other. Edoardo was a troubled soul. He’d been rejected and neglected by his father, and became a heroin addict and a religious convert, obviously searching for something he never found. After the suicide, Gianni seemed determined to break up Roffredo and me to have his “new son” all to himself.

  I would plan our vacation in Corsica, and on the same dates, Gianni, who was also Roffredo’s boss, would demand that he go to a meeting in Sicily. If I went to Sicily with him, Gianni would say, “Now I need you in Bastia.” He did it on purpose to sabotage our relationship out of jealousy. Gianni would invite us to St. Moritz to his chalet for dinner, and he’d seat me next to him and Roffredo opposite us. Meanwhile, Gianni’s long-suffering, cheated-on wife, Marella, was banished to a table across the room. He would ask me question after question to try to pick my brain about people I knew. Gianni loved to get the gossip on people and use it as ammunition against them. He got nothing from me. I never liked him. The whole Agnelli family acted like the kings and queens of Europe, with their palace intrigues and lording over others. When Gianni died in 2003, I didn’t shed a tear.

  Unlike Donald, a workaholic, Roffredo was a bon vivant. He shared my excitement about life and enthusiasm for adventure. He took me to the Ferrari factory in Italy once. I drove a Formula One around the track and punched it to two hundred miles per hour. He was amazed by my love for speed, but he should have known. He’d watched me ski in Aspen (I tried to teach him, but he was okay, not great). As a gift, he gave me a customized candy-red Ferrari F355 Spider, which I think is the sexiest car ever made.

  Christmas 2005, I was in Aspen with the kids. Roffredo went to visit his mother, Countess Loraine Montalcino, in Tuscany. His flight landed in Rome at seven thirty a.m., and he got a rental car at eight thirty a.m. to drive to the vineyard. Two years before, while making the same drive, Roffredo had skidded off the road in the thick morning fog and crashed. I always worried about that drive and breathed a sigh of relief whenever he called to say he’d arrived safely. That year, I got a call from Italy as expected, but it wasn’t Roffredo. Loraine told me he he’d skidded off the road again in the frost and broken his neck and passed away.

  I was in my suite at the Little Nell, the phone against my cheek, listening to his mother sobbing. The countess told me the funeral was the next day, but I was snowed in and couldn’t go. I was devastated. Friends called all day long. Roffredo’s sisters called. The phone didn’t stop ringing. I know I spoke to people and listened to them try to console me. The kids were there, but what could they do?

  Roffredo was only fifty-two, bursting with energy and full of joy. I cry whenever I think about him, even now, writing this chapter. I have no idea why I didn’t marry him.

  For a while, I was in shock. After shock came anger. Why didn’t he drive slower? Why didn’t he wait until the fog lifted? And then, once the anger subsided, my steely resolve emerged, as it always has: “I have to get on with my life.” At one point during our five years together, he bought a duplex downtown near Cipriani, one of our usual spots, that I helped him decorate. I went down there and sat alone among his things, the boxing bag downstairs, his art, his clothes, and cried. I replayed my favorite memories and some mundane ones—our picking out the drapes, having drinks at the table, dancing. Grieving in his apartment was as much catharsis as I was going to get. After a few months, one of his relatives came to New York to clean out the place and sell it.

  During my mourning period, I kept up with my business, my travel plans, and my activities. Otherwise, it would have been like giving up. Life can wear you down, but you can’t hide from it. I’d lost two loves to divorce and two to tragic accidents, but I was still here. The world continued to spin, and I was a part of it.

  The kids were all in their mid- to late twenties by then. They tried to help by taking me to lunch and coming by the town house, but there was nothing anyone could do. You have to grieve in your own way and on your own terms. I think they saw it as an opportunity to pay me back for all the support and comfort I’d given them during tough times, but that didn’t feel right for me. It was my job to help them, not the other way around. I am always happy to see my kids and I appreciated the visits. But I mourned alone.

  • • •

  A year later, in 2006, my yacht was parked at Cannes for the film festival, and I was having a party with two hundred people on it. Massimo asked if he could bring a guest and I said, “Of course.” The guest turned out to be a young, nice, very good-looking, trim, stylish man with a great sense of humor named Rossano Rubicondi, also from Rome. Clearly, I have a thing for Italians. Maybe I was Italian in a previous life.

  Rossano and I got along very well, and the next day, he asked me to lunch. We started seeing each other. At the end of the summer, I invited him to cruise with me from Saint-Tropez to Sardinia. Per protocol, he gave his passport to my stewardess Anna for the captain, Alberto, to give to customs officials in San Remo. When Anna gave me the passports back, I took a peek at Rossano’s date of birth. He’d told me that he was in his thirties, but he was actually twenty-nine. I almost fainted. I thought, What am I doing? I was fifty-seven.

  Then again, why not date a much younger man? What was the alternative? Being with an old man? I’d rather be a babysitter than a nursemaid. Take care of someone’s bad knees and bad back? Forget it. If the man has other things to offer besides experience and wealth, the relationship could be balanced. Rossano was young, gorgeous, had some money, traveled with me, went to lunches and dinners, took me to the airport, schlepped my luggage, and drove me around. I prefer to go out with someone on my arm. As long as I could afford it, I would take care of Rossano. You always have to watch over
your shoulder and tune in to any suspicious requests, but Rossano never asked me for anything. He was just there for me, and we had a great time together.

  I didn’t discuss my relationships with the kids. They were out of the house and busy in their own lives by then. They rarely came to Saint-Tropez anymore and didn’t get to know Rossano. When they found out about him, they didn’t react positively or negatively to his being so much younger. They might’ve worried that he was a gold digger, but I assured them I wasn’t concerned about that. As long as I was happy, that’s all they cared about.

  Rossano and I had some good times together. One Halloween, Nikki and I went to Trashy Lingerie in Los Angeles and got sexy costumes for Donna and Dick Soloway’s party that year. I got a very cute Little Bo Peep costume, with a frilly white shirt with puffy sleeves, a short skirt with a crinoline underneath, a German-style vest, and a shepherd’s crook. Rossano came up with the idea of dressing up as Donald Trump, with a wig, the fake tan, and a business suit. He looked so much like him, people were coming up to us, asking when we got back together! We won first prize for best costume.

  Rossano was an excellent tennis player and he competed in the Mar-a-Lago membership tournaments. One year, in the finals, it was Rossano versus Donald, and Rossano won. (Donald wasn’t so happy about that.) His name is on a plaque in Mar-a-Lago for that win, etched in copper.

  After two years together, we decided to get married at Mar-a-Lago in the ballroom, a space big enough for our six hundred guests, and Donald was kind enough to waive the $20,000 fee. All I had to pay for was the food and drink, and the décor. After doing five thousand weddings at the Plaza, I knew exactly what I wanted and who I wanted involved to put the magical day together.

  The Friday afternoon before the ceremony, Maryanne Trump, Donald’s sister, the judge who was officiating, asked for my marriage license.