Ivanka Trump was only 8 years old when her parents Donald and Ivana Trump split up in the early ‘90s. The divorce followed tabloid reports that Trump, now the Republican presidential nominee, had cheated with model and actress Marla Maples ― a woman he went on to marry in 1993.
In a new interview with People, Ivanka says her parents did a “remarkable job” of shielding her and brothers Donald Jr. and Eric from the tabloid scandal.
“We didn’t have newspapers in the house for a significant period of time and the TV wasn’t on when they weren’t there,” she said. “So they tried to mitigate the attention that that moment received.”
The divorce dragged on in the tabloids before ending in a reported $25 million settlement for Ivana.
Trump’s eldest daughter ― who along with her husband, publisher Jared Kushner, has been one of her father’s closest advisers during his presidential campaign ― told People her parents remained “supportive” of each other throughout the divorce.
“Really the way in which they helped us the most was by being supportive with one another, not disparaging the other in front of us, recognizing that and communicating that there was still tremendous affection between them and that there would always be great love for us,” she told the magazine.
The People interview coincided with Ivanka’s introduction of her father at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland Thursday night. In her speech, the 34-year-old entrepreneur attempted to defend her dad from critics who’ve described him as racist and sexist.
“He is colorblind and gender-neutral,” she said of her father, who has called women “pigs” and “dogs” in the past. The mom of three also suggested Trump would support equal pay for women as president. (His campaign, however, reportedly pays its male staffers 35 percent more than their female counterparts.)
Throughout Trump’s presidential bid, Ivanka has attempted to soften her father’s image in campaign speeches and anecdote-heavy interviews.
In a one-on-one interview with CNN’s Gloria Borger earlier this week, she called the GOP nominee an “incredible parent” even if he “wasn’t long on diaper changing.” (Trump himself suggested that diaper duty is just not a man’s job in a 2005 radio interview.)
As she summed up his parenting style in the CNN interview, “He wasn’t always physically present, but he was always available.”
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims ― 1.6 billion members of an entire religion ― from entering the U.S.
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