Ivana Trump, the first wife of former president Donald Trump, died from accidentally falling down the stairs in her apartment, the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office has concluded.
The tumble caused “blunt impact injuries to her chest,” a Friday autopsy revealed, the New York Post reports.
She was 73.
Trump was found dead on Thursday at the foot of the stairs in her Manhattan home.
The former president confirmed the death, writing on Truth Social, “I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City.”
Mr Trump described his former wife as “a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life.”
Ms Trump’s children added in a statement of their own that “our mother was an incredible woman – a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend” who “fled from communism and embraced this country”.
Ms Trump was born Ivana Zelníčková in what was then Czechoslovakia, in the factory town of Zlin.
There, she was taught to ski by her father Milos and went on to become a talented member of the country’s national youth ski team, although she was overlooked for the 1972 Winter Olympics.
Her first marriage came in 1971 to Austrian skier Alfred Winklmayr and that union allowed her to leave communist Czechoslovakia for Canada, where she taught English in Toronto.
Ms Trump met Donald Trump in New York City in 1976, and the two became regular fixtures on the city social scene and society pages after getting married in 1977.
The pair’s relationship eventually became tabloid fodder amid a contentious divorce and the revelation that Mr Trump had an affair with Marla Maples, his eventual second wife.
Ivana Trump was the mother of Donald Trump’s three eldest children: Donald Trump, Jr; Ivanka; and Eric.
She said she and the former president remained in touch over the years, and described speaking with him regularly as he campaigned for president then occupied the White House.
