What were the allegations made by Ivana Trump against Donald Trump during their divorce proceedings?

1. What Ivana allegedly said in the divorce deposition

Court reporting and subsequent books recount that in a sworn deposition around 1990 Ivana told lawyers she felt “violated” by an incident in 1989 involving Donald after he had undergone a painful scalp‑reduction procedure; Harry Hurt III’s Lost Tycoon describes the exchange as a violent assault and reports that Ivana alleged rape in that context ^{[1] [4] [5]}. Multiple news organizations summarize that the deposition included language suggesting a sexual assault took place, and the allegation became a subject of later retellings and legal reporting ^{[6] [7]}.

2. How Trump and his spokespeople responded

Donald Trump categorically denied the account. He called Hurt’s description “obviously false,” and his aides pushed back on reporting that revived the deposition years later ^{[8] [1]}. Michael Cohen, then a top Trump lawyer, publicly argued in 2015 that “you cannot rape your spouse,” using that claim to rebut the reporting—an argument that generated controversy because spousal rape had been illegal across the U.S. since decades earlier ^[2].

3. Ivana’s later statements and apparent retraction

After the story resurfaced in later reporting, Ivana issued statements disavowing the comments as reported from decades earlier, calling quotes attributed to her “totally without merit” and saying the deposition remarks were made “at a time of very high tension during my divorce” ^{[1] [2]}. Several outlets note she later publicly reconciled with or supported Donald politically, which complicates assessing her earlier deposition language ^{[1] [5]}.

4. How journalists and books have framed the allegation

Biographies and investigative pieces (for example Lost Tycoon and later press accounts) treated Ivana’s deposition as an allegation of sexual assault and sometimes rape, placing it amid a broader pattern of accusations against Donald Trump chronicled by newspapers and magazines ^{[1] [4] [5]}. Other outlets compiling lists or timelines of allegations include Ivana’s deposition alongside many other women’s claims, while noting denials and contested details ^{[8] [7]}.

5. Legal and evidentiary limits in public reporting

Available reporting shows the allegation originated in private divorce litigation and a deposition, with much of what the public knows coming via books and press summaries rather than contemporaneous criminal charges or public court findings; some reporting highlights that Ivana later softened the claim and that there was no public criminal prosecution tied to the deposition ^{[4] [2]}. Legal commentators and fact‑checks also emphasize there is no publicly disclosed criminal conviction tied to Ivana’s deposition ^{[6] [9]}.

6. Competing narratives and political context

News outlets point out competing narratives: authors and journalists who recount Ivana’s deposition frame it as a serious allegation; Trump allies and spokespeople dismiss it as false or mischaracterized, and Ivana herself later downplayed or disavowed the published characterizations ^{[5] [2] [1]}. Several sources explicitly note the resurfacing of the deposition during times of political consequence (e.g., Trump’s presidential runs), which influenced both the attention the claim received and the responses from political actors ^{[4] [5]}.

7. What the sources do and do not say

The materials provided document that Ivana reported feeling “violated” in a 1990 deposition and that books and later reporting interpreted that as an allegation of sexual assault or rape; they also document denials by Donald Trump and later statements by Ivana disavowing the press‑attributed comments ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Available sources do not mention a criminal charge or court finding against Donald Trump based on Ivana’s deposition, nor do they provide contemporaneous public transcripts fully laying out every word of the testimony in the public domain ^{[6] [9]}.

Summary note for readers: contemporary coverage of this episode is layered—primary deposition language was largely private, later framed by biographers and journalists as an allegation of assault, and subsequently complicated by denials from Donald Trump and disavowals or contextual statements from Ivana; all three strands appear across the reporting cited here ^{[1] [2] [5]}.