Marla Maples once opened up about her time with Donald Trump and shared that he had been thinking about running for president long before most people realized. Their story goes back to the late 1980s when his first marriage was falling apart.
Marla grew up in a small town in Georgia with what she called a storybook childhood. She was popular in high school as homecoming queen and did well in sports and academics. After starting college at the University of Georgia she felt burned out from trying to be perfect in every way so she left after a couple of years and headed to New York City to chase dreams of acting and modeling.
She met Donald around 1985 at a time when his marriage to Ivana was already in trouble. They connected right away but kept things quiet at first mostly talking on the phone. By 1988 Marla knew she had real feelings for him. The tabloids eventually caught wind of it and things got messy when Ivana found out.
There was even an awkward encounter between the two women in Colorado where they both wanted the truth to come out. Marla later said they had both been deceived and it brought a lot of pain once the whole world knew.
A short time after that she saw news of the divorce while watching a boxing match on TV. She tried to step back and even thought about running far away but the pull was strong. Donald had a way of romancing her that made it hard to say no.
They started dating openly and the media could not get enough. Marla became a celebrity overnight. She always felt pressure to look perfect with flawless hair makeup and designer clothes. Looking back at old photos she sometimes wondered who she was trying to become just to fit into that world.
In 1993 they got married in a big ceremony at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Their daughter Tiffany was born just before the wedding. The marriage lasted only a few years though and they separated in 1997 before finalizing the divorce in 1999.
Even years later Marla revealed that Donald had talked about his presidential ambitions as far back as the 1990s. She mostly stayed out of the spotlight after the split focusing on her own life and supporting her daughter.
Their relationship had all the drama of a tabloid saga from the secret beginnings to the very public breakup. Marla has said she believed in the good in him at the time and that young love made it feel real even with all the complications. Life moved on for both of them and they raised Tiffany together as co parents while keeping things as private as possible in such a famous family.