Donald Trump was married to Ivana Trump when he started dating Marla Maples. Despite Donald’s marital status, Maples never considered herself a “mistress,” but she did regret the hurt caused by their affair. “Do I wish more than anything that we could have had this relationship after the divorce papers were signed? Absolutely. With all my heart,” Maples admitted on the podcast “Journeys of Faith with Paula Faris” in December 2018.
Once news broke of Donald and Maples’ affair, she found herself splashed on the front cover of every tabloid, with sensationalist and fabricated headlines, such as: “Trump Mistress Close to Suicide” and “How Suite It Was! Secret hotel romps of Donald & Marla.” Paparazzi hounded Maples and her family around the clock. Reporters splashed serious cash to dig up dirt from her past. And, because misogyny is still alive and well, Maples was painted as a femme fatale who wrecked Donald’s marriage, seemingly without any help from him.
“The media has portrayed Marla as a disorganized shapely bimbo, and that is not what she is,” her publicist Chuck Jones told Vanity Fair in November 1990. Jones compared the media assault on Maples to his time serving in Vietnam, claiming, “This was like a war, too — like being in combat again.” Meanwhile, Maples couldn’t stop gushing about Donald, calling him “a genius, adorable, with a little-boy quality — I mean, he knows when he’s being too cute, and he laughs at himself about it.”
