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Saturday, January 23, 2010 - 12:08 AM
The poster couple for 1980s excess and conspicuous consumption, Donald
and Ivana Trump cultivated media attention throughout their
high-profile marriage; and upon the news of their 1991 breakup, the New
York media would feast on every tidbit of the divorce. Christmastime
1990, Page Six of The New York Post reported a confrontation
between Ivana and Marla Maples, the other woman, on the slopes of Aspen
and, from that point onward, the unraveling of the marriage became
regular tabloid fodder. Ivana's lawyers argued that the prenuptial
agreement the couple signed before the marriage should be disregarded
in view of the contributions Ivana had made to the Trump corporate
empire, first as Vice President of Interior Design for Trump Tower,
then as President of the Trump Castle Hotel and Casino and finally as
President of the Plaza Hotel.
The divorce also drew coverage
from the New York financial press: the Trump empire had been so heavily
leveraged during the junk-bond boom of the 1980s that voiding or
significantly changing the prenuptual agreement could cause the
complete unraveling of Trump's empire. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire argued that
Ivana's work for the Trump businesses had in fact been compensated by
separate agreements, and that no modification to the prenuptial
contract was justified. In early 1992, Donald and Ivana were
unexpectedly reunited by the sudden death of her father, who had
shouldered much of the parental responsibility for Donald and Ivana's
children while they pursued their respective careers. A negotiated
settlement soon followed which closely followed the original terms of
the prenuptial contract, averting the complete collapse of the Trump
empire—although various holdings did file for bankruptcy—and freeing
both Donald and Ivana to pursue younger spouses.
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