What did Ivana Trump publicly say about allegations that Donald Trump raped her?
Executive summary
Ivana Trump once described an episode from her marriage to Donald Trump as a "rape" in divorce-related testimony that was later published in Harry Hurt III’s 1993 book Lost Tycoon, but she repeatedly softened and walked back that language, saying she did not mean the term in a "literal or criminal sense" and later publicly defended and endorsed her ex-husband [1] [2] [3]. Donald Trump has denied the account and the Trump camp and Ivana herself issued statements characterizing the resurfaced claims as outdated, the product of divorce tensions or "lawyers' talk" [4] [5] [6].
1. The original allegation as it appeared in reporting and the book
Reporting based on Ivana’s 1990 divorce deposition was excerpted in Harry Hurt III’s 1993 book Lost Tycoon, which described a violent episode in 1989 during which Ivana was said to have told friends she had been raped by Donald Trump; the book reproduces language that Ivana used to characterize the encounter [1] [3]. Multiple news outlets and later compendiums of allegations against Trump cite that passage as the origin of Ivana’s use of the term "rape" in the context of their divorce proceedings [2] [7].
2. Ivana’s explicit redefinition: “not in a literal or criminal sense”
When the passage resurfaced in media coverage years later, Ivana issued statements clarifying that while she had used the word "rape" to convey how violated she felt, she "did not want [her] words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense," and that the matter reflected the acrimony of a high‑tension divorce rather than a criminal accusation [1] [5] [2]. She explicitly told reporters that the events had left her feeling "violated" and that the phrasing had been influenced by lawyers and the adversarial context of the divorce [6] [8].
3. Public rebuttals, campaign amplification and legal context
The Trump campaign and spokespeople pushed back sharply when the allegation was revived during later political coverage, circulating Ivana’s denials and emphasizing her later supportive public comments about Donald; the campaign released statements quoting Ivana saying the story was “totally without merit” and expressing fondness for her ex-husband [4] [3]. At the same time, commentators noted the legal and historical context — that marital rape laws had been evolving — and some defense statements echoed an argument that one “can’t rape your spouse,” a line that produced controversy and an apology from a Trump lawyer [5] [3].
4. Reporting standards and the limits of public records
Independent reporting and fact checks note that Ivana’s original deposition is not broadly public and that much of what the public knows comes through secondary sourcing — the Hurt book and subsequent media excerpts — while New York court records around the divorce were treated as private unless unsealed [9] [1]. Major fact‑checks summarize that Ivana at one point accused Trump of rape in a deposition but later recanted or recharacterized the claim, leaving an evidentiary and documentary gap in the public record [10].
5. How Ivana framed her later public stance
In later interviews and statements, Ivana described the resurfaced allegations as exaggerated by legal dispute and reporting, calling the matter “lawyers’ talk” and publicly offering positive remarks about Donald Trump’s character and political prospects — positions the campaign used to rebut the resurfaced narrative [6] [4] [3]. She consistently emphasized family ties and affection in those statements while distancing herself from having leveled a literal criminal accusation in later public comments [5] [2].
6. The competing narratives and what remains unresolved
Two competing narratives persist in the record: contemporaneous divorce testimony reported in Hurt’s book in which Ivana is quoted using the word "rape," and her subsequent, repeated public clarifications that she did not intend a literal criminal accusation and that the language reflected the intensity of divorce proceedings [1] [2]. Reporting sources document both the initial claim and Ivana’s walk‑back, but public documents that would definitively corroborate or refute the underlying events remain largely private or unexamined in public reporting [9] [10].