Ivana Zelníčková was born on February 20, 1949, in the Moravian town of Zlín (formerly known as Gottwaldov), Czechoslovakia, the daughter of Miloš Zelníček (1927–1990) and Marie Zelníčková (née Francová). Her Czech father was an electrical engineer and her Austrian mother worked as a telephone operator. Her father encouraged her skiing talent, a practice she began at age four. After developing skills as a skier, she joined the junior national ski team, which offered her opportunities to travel beyond the Soviet-era communist boundaries of what was then the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. She attended Charles University in Prague and earned a master’s degree in physical education in 1972.

In 1970, Ivana appeared on Czechoslovak Television in the children’s television series Pan Tau.

In 1971, Zelníčková married Alfred Winklmayr, a ski instructor and her platonic friend, in order to obtain an Austrian passport. The marriage to an Austrian granted her the freedom to leave Communist Czechoslovakia without defection so she could retain the right to return to visit her parents. Ivana Winklmayr received her Austrian passport in March 1972. The following year, she obtained an absentee divorce from Alfred Winklmayr in Los Angeles, California, where he had moved to teach skiing.

Zelníčková was romantically involved with the lyricist and playwright George (Jiři) Staidl who was killed in a car accident in 1973. After Staidl’s death, Ivana moved to Canada where she lived with George (Jiři) Syrovatka whom she had dated since 1967; Syrovatka had defected to Canada in 1971 and owned a ski boutique in Montreal.

Ivana worked as a ski instructor while living in Canada. She lived in Montreal for two years where she continued to improve her English by taking night courses at McGill University and also worked as a model. In 1975, Ivana told the Montreal Gazette that she considered modeling to be a job, rather than a career. Her modeling clients included Eaton’s department store and the designer Auckie Sanft, along with promotional work for the 1976 Summer Olympics that were being hosted in Montreal.

Ivana was in New York City with a group of models in 1976 when she met Donald Trump. On April 7, 1977, Ivana M. Winklmayr married Donald Trump at Marble Collegiate Church in a wedding officiated by Norman Vincent Peale. The couple became leading figures in New York society during the 1980s. They worked together on several large projects, including the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the renovation of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City, and the construction of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

She had three children during her much publicized second marriage to Donald Trump from 1977 to 1992, all of them prior to acquiring her US citizenship in 1988: Don in 1977, Ivanka in 1981 and Eric in 1984.

Ivana is multilingual, being fluent in German, French, Czech, Russian, and English. She became a naturalized US citizen in 1988.

Ivana and Donald Trump made several appearances together on TV programs including The Oprah Winfrey Show in April 1988, followed by the BBC’s Wogan in May 1988. After her divorce from Donald Trump, Ivana was interviewed by Barbara Walters for ABC’s 20/20. In 1991, Donald Trump cut off her alimony payments after the interview and announced his intention to sue Ivana for monetary damages.

Accounts differ as to Ivana’s history of skiing competitively. It was reported that she was selected as an alternate on the Czechoslovak ski team during the 1972 Winter Olympics, specializing in downhill and slalom. However, in 1989, Petr Pomezný, Secretary General of the Czechoslovak Olympic Committee, refuted the claim and stated that despite searching extensively, no record could be found of her involvement.

However, the Trump’s troubled marriage became the subject of public interest over the Christmas holiday in 1989, when the family went on vacation to Aspen, Colorado, and were observed fighting after Ivana encountered Donald Trump’s mistress Marla Maples. The Chicago Tribune reported that by February 1990, Donald Trump had locked Ivana out of her office at the Plaza Hotel, and a legal battle ensued over the legitimacy of the four prenuptial agreements the pair had successively negotiated over the years.

In October 1990, Ivana Trump’s 63-year-old father, Miloš Zelníček, died suddenly from a heart attack. According to The Guardian, her father was an informer for Czechoslovakia’s Státní bezpečnost (StB) intelligence service who relayed information from his daughter, including a prediction that George H. W. Bush would win the 1988 presidential election. Despite their marital troubles and pending divorce, Ivana stood side by side with Donald Trump at her father’s funeral in Zlín held in November 1990. The service was also attended by Jaroslav Jansa, secret collaborator to the StB.

The Trumps’ divorce proceedings received worldwide publicity. Front-page coverage appeared in New York tabloid newspapers for eleven days in a row, and the story was the subject of Liz Smith’s entire news coverage for three months. In a deposition relating to their divorce, Ivana accused Donald Trump of rape and of pulling out handfuls of her hair. In Harry Hurt III’s book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump, she confirmed that she had “felt violated”. However, in a statement provided by Donald Trump and his lawyers, Ivana Trump said that she had used the word “rape”, but she did not “want [her] words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.” The uncontested divorce was granted in December 1990 on the grounds of cruel and inhumane treatment by Mr. Trump. Ivana had to sign a non-disclosure agreement as a condition of the divorce settlement, and she was required to seek Donald Trump’s permission before publicly discussing their marriage. The New York Times reported in 1991 that Ivana’s divorce settlement included $14 million, a 45-room Connecticut mansion, an apartment in the Trump Plaza, and the use of Mar-a-Lago for one month a year. The divorce was finalized in 1992.

Soon after her divorce from Donald Trump in 1992, Ivana developed lines of clothing, fashion jewelry and beauty products that have been sold through television shopping channels, including the Home Shopping Network and QVC London. In 1995, she presided over the House of Ivana, a fashion and fragrance company with a showroom located on Park Avenue in New York.

Ivana returned to The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1992 after her divorce from Donald and stated “I will not let men dominate me anymore.”

Ivana married Italian entrepreneur and international businessman Riccardo Mazzucchelli in November 1995. They divorced in 1997. That same year, she filed a $15 million breach of contract suit against Mazzucchelli for violating the confidentiality clause in their prenuptial agreement. Mazzucchelli filed a countersuit against Ivana and Donald Trump for libel in British court during 1997. The suit was later settled under undisclosed terms.

In 1998, she pursued business interests in Croatia (a vacation destination her parents frequently visited), which included the purchase of 33% of the nation’s second largest daily newspaper.

In February 1999, Ivana launched her own lifestyle magazine titled Ivana’s Living in Style. In 2001, she contributed an advice column for Divorce Magazine.

In 2004, the Ivana-branded Bentley Bay development in Miami, Florida, filed for bankruptcy. In 2005, Trump was involved in several proposed condominium projects, including the never-built Ivana Las Vegas.

In the summer of 1997, she began dating Italian aristocrat Count Roffredo Gaetani. The relationship continued until his death in 2005.

Trump was the host of a reality TV special titled Ivana Young Man, which aired on Oxygen Network in 2006. In the reality dating program, she helped a wealthy, middle-aged woman find a younger partner.

Ivana dated Italian actor and model Rossano Rubicondi for six years before they married in April 2008. The marriage to Rubicondi, 36, was the fourth union for Ivana, then 59. The couple’s $3 million wedding for 400 guests was hosted by ex-husband Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago with daughter Ivanka as her maid of honor. The wedding was officiated by Maryanne Trump Barry. Although Ivana and Rubicondi divorced less than a year later, their on-again, off-again relationship continued until 2019, when Ivana announced they had once again “called it quits”.

In 2010, she sued the Finnish fashion company, Ivana Helsinki, accusing it of selling women’s clothing that incorporated her name without permission.

In 2010, Trump appeared in the UK version of Celebrity Big Brother.

In 2017, she released an autobiography, Raising Trump, that covers her own upbringing and the early years of raising her children with Donald Trump.