A tale of two Trump sisters
They have the same father, but Ivanka and Tiffany’s lives are poles apart. What will happen when they both land in Britain,
It was a minor moment in an otherwise insignificant speech. At an event in Ohio last year, Donald Trump was midway through lecturing a group of labourers, engineers and “incredible carpenters” about how terrific he is, when he broke off and addressed some special guests.
“Speaking of a job well done,” he said, segueing as gracefully as ever, “we have two of my daughters here today”. At this point, the room may have collectively wondered who he meant. They, like the rest of the world, know about Ivanka – the daughter he employed as his advisor and de-facto First Lady, the daughter he said he’d date if only she wasn’t his daughter, the one whose real name, Ivana Marie Trump, is identical to her mother’s – and began to applaud at first mention of her. Then suddenly, Trump remembered something else. “And Tiffany!”
The tale of the two Trump sisters, Ivanka, 37, and 25-year-old And Tiffany (or Tiffany, as she’s less commonly known) is a curious one. The former was raised in New York with her father and his riches, the latter in California without him. One had her own jewellery line, the other was named after a jewellery brand. One markets herself as a self-made businesswoman-cum-diplomat, the other is happy to act the archetypal billionaire’s daughter. One is best friends with Chelsea Clinton, the other with Lindsay Lohan. One was placed front and centre in every room during her father’s presidential campaign, the other was so far to the side,
she might as well have stood in the car park. Now as the UK prepares for the Trump state visit next week, one will be arriving on Air Force One with Daddy, while the other is already here, dining in Annabel’s, shopping in Harrods and doing things her way.
Here’s all you need to know about Tiffany Trump.
Family matters
To ask whether Donald has a favourite daughter would be like asking whether Fox News has a favourite political party.
He once told an interviewer: “Let me tell you one thing. Ivanka is a great, great beauty. Every guy in the country wants to go out with my daughter.” Then the pause. “You know I have another daughter, with Marla, named Tiffany? She’s just a beautiful great kid also.
But it’s very separate. When you have separate wives, it’s sort of… separate.”
Years later, on Election Day in 2016, he said he was proud of Tiffany “to a lesser extent” than his other offspring. Just what every child wants to hear.
Rearing process
If there is a reason Donald isn’t seen as being as close with Tiffany as he is with Ivanka, it could be that they were around 3,000 miles apart for most of her childhood. Donald and Tiffany’s mother, the actress Marla Maples, separated when she was four and divorced when she was six. Tiffany moved from New York to California, where she was raised with Maples, and mainly saw Donald and her siblings during spring break at Mar-a-lago, the hotel he owns in Florida.
By contrast, Ivanka made it to the age of 10 before Donald divorced her mother, the Czech former model Ivana Trump, but she stayed a mere elevator ride away from her father in Trump Tower with her brothers, Don Jr and Eric, and their mother.
Education, education, education
For one very fleeting moment, it seemed as if Tiffany would follow her mother into show business. In 2011, her final year of school, she released a pop song entitled Like A Bird, the lyrics of which (“Diamonds are so shiny/special things I got on me”) mysteriously eluded the Pulitzer committee. In the end, she paused the music and enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, nearer her father and half-siblings, and eventually received a double major in Sociology and Urban Studies. After internships at Vogue and an eyewear company, she went to Georgetown Law School in Washington, DC.
As for Ivanka? She had a rather more charmed upbringing. Her father once arranged for Michael Jackson to watch her dance in The Nutcracker – a memory that may have lost its glow in recent months. She started out at a girls’ school in Manhattan before attending a prestigious boarding school in Connecticut, which she likened to a “prison” – John F Kennedy, Glenn Close and Michael Douglas are among former inmates. She then attended Georgetown University before switching to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where her brother, Don Jr, and father also studied. She went on to be a model before definitely not using her father’s connections to get ahead in business.
Life partners
Ivanka has been married to mute vampire doll Jared Kushner, who now serves alongside her as a senior advisor to Donald, for 11 years. Before, she’d been linked to everybody from Lance Armstrong to Topher Grace. Tiffany, meanwhile, is currently in London with her boyfriend Michael Boulos, a finance student of Lebanese and French descent who was born in Texas but grew up in Nigeria – a country her father may or may not have been thinking of when he reportedly referred to some parts of Africa as “s---ole countries” last year. Before Boulos, she dated a man named Ross Mechanic. Which is a real name, honestly.
Circles of trust
Before a tidy up, Tiffany’s Instagram feed used to feature her partying with the “Snap Pack”, a group of heiresses and models who keenly displayed their wealth. Other members included Kyra Kennedy, a daughter of Robert F Kennedy Jr, and Barron Hilton, brother of Paris. She’s also old friends with Lindsay Lohan, who Tiffany’s father once mused is “probably deeply troubled and therefore great in bed”, and the actress Abigail Breslin, who her father has mercifully said nothing about.
Ivanka has her own celebrity circle – or did – starting with Chelsea Clinton, whom she reportedly met through her husband a few years ago. She and Kushner are also firm friends with Hugh Jackman, whose 50th birthday party they attended last year, and it’s been reported Ivanka is close with Wendi Deng, the former wife and one-time bodyguard of Rupert Murdoch.
Sisterly bond
In Ivanka’s profoundly moving first book The Trump Card: Playing To Win In Work And Life, there is just one mention of her sister – when Tiffany approaches her for advice about how she should ask their father for a credit card. “All she wanted, really, was a way to enjoy some of the privileges her friends got to enjoy,” Ivanka wrote. She “suggested [Donald] think about surprising Tiffany with a credit card for Christmas, with a small monthly allowance on it. Sure enough, he did just that”.
The parable of that story is unclear, but it at least illustrates the fact the sisters got on. And they continue to, apparently. Tiffany posts photographs of herself with Ivanka’s three children, Ivanka says things like “She’s my little sister! I’ve been close to Tiffany her whole life, and I really love her.” And there’s no reason to doubt that. But, boy, what a pair.