close

Politics - News Analysis

Ivana Trump Died From Blunt Force Trauma — and the Conspiracy Theorists are Out in Force

By

Yes, her last name was Trump, but this is still heartbreaking.

Ivana Trump, Donald Trump’s first wife, died from “blunt impact injuries of the torso,” the New York City medical examiner announced Friday. The 73-year-old was found dead Thursday afternoon at the bottom of the staircase of her Manhattan home. Her death has been ruled an “accident,” the NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed that she died as the result of a fall.

The news comes after a close friend said the first Trump wife couldn’t walk well and struggled to leave her house in the weeks that preceded her death.

Zach Erdem, a longtime friend of Ivana, said she had a hip issue that limited her ability to walk. He added that Ivana “was feeling bad” the last time he spoke to her two weeks ago.

“She said she was having pain in her leg,” he told the paper. ”She couldn’t get out of her house.”

And other friends had worried about the stairs in her apartment.

Ivana Trump’s best friend, Nikki Haskell, feared “she would fall” on the “treacherous stairs” of her Upper East Side home.
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

From the NY Post:

“I have to tell you something — that has always been my fear,” Nikki Haskell told Extra TV. “She had one of those really beautiful staircases that was impossible to walk down. Narrow in the inside and wider as it got out. I was always afraid that she would fall. I don’t know what happened, but it’s not hard for me to believe that’s what happened — treacherous stairs.”

Apparently, the stairs weren’t in the best condition, and the carpet was worn and could possibly cause someone to trip. Also from the Post:

Ivana often posed in her luxurious, multi-million dollar townhouse on East 64th Street with the staircase in the background. Gossip columnist Rob Shuter said Friday night on News Nation that he had visited the apartment — and also called the staircase “treacherous.”

“(The apartment) wasn’t as renovated and up to speed as you’d think,” Shuter said. “Those stairs were always dangerous. The carpet on those stairs was a little bit worn too.”

Gossip columnist Rob Shuter also called Ivana Trump’s staircase “dangerous” because of its worn out carpet.
Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

What happened to Ivana is sad, and it’s something that happens to elderly people. They fall. A weak hip or weak knees can easily cause a fall, and that fall can often prove fatal. But it was just that…a fall. Sadly, many people on social media wanted to take it too far, and the hashtag #Epsteined was soon trending on Twitter. The hashtag was a reference to the mysterious death of Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced billionaire who was found hanged in his cell in 2019 and became the center of myriad conspiracy theories.

From Rolling Stone:

What was perhaps less inevitable, however, was that conspiracy theorists on the internet from all sides of the political spectrum would immediately conclude that Ivana Trump had been assassinated to prevent her from being deposed in an ongoing civil investigation into his business dealings. The fact that Ivana was found at the bottom of the stairs only served to add fuel to suspicions around her death.

Take a look at some of the tweets, they were truly crazy:

https://twitter.com/barrett_dog/status/1547722434303762433

And there are many more. The sad thing about this? It’s liberals who are doing most of the tweeting. Come on, guys. Ivana was an older lady. She was not doing well physically. The stairs were tattered and wide. She fell. That’s it. Yes, a deposition was postponed. Not canceled. Postponed. It’s not like the depo won’t happen just because Ivana died.

We need to be better than those crazy crackpot conservatives. A 73-year-old rich woman died after falling down the stairs. Period.

Nicole Hickman
meet the author

Nicole Hickman James is a lifelong Democrat and political activist who first cut her teeth as a teenager volunteering for Mike Dukakis’ presidential campaign. She has worked and volunteered for John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, HFA (Hillary For America), and Organizing For Action. She’s passionate about liberal and progressive causes and considers President Obama her favorite president ever. She holds her Bachelor’s from Boston College in Economics and her Master's from Columbia, also in Economics. When not working as a writer, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her three college-aged children.

Comments

Comments are currently closed.

Recent Stories

Trending Stories