On Thursday afternoon, Vanessa Trump, 40, filed for divorce from Donald Trump Jr., 40, her husband of 12 years.
In a recently released joint statement about their split, the former couple wrote that they "will always have tremendous respect for each other," and that their five children are now their priority. Trump, an actress and former model, is seeking an "uncontested divorce," which means she does not expect to engage in a custody battle over their kids or assets. According to some reports, Donald Trump Jr.'s net worth is around $200 million.
While they did not provide a reason for the split, a Page Six exclusive, released a day before Trump filed for divorce, reported that multiple sources had said that, while the couple had hoped to make it through Trump's presidency without breaking up, the two had been leading separate lives for some time, partly due to Donald Trump Jr.'s heavy traveling schedule.
According to sources, his erratic tweets and the scandals surrounding his father seemed to played a role in the demise of the marriage as well. Vanessa, a private person, was reportedly unhappy with the spotlight that had suddenly been placed on her family. According to some sources, the final straw came in mid-February, when she opened a letter addressed to her husband that contained an unidentified white powder. Though the substance was later found to be harmless, the incident left her concerned for the safety of her and her children.
It's impossible to truly know what goes on in a relationship from the outside, so all of this is pure speculation. However, it's difficult not to notice that Donald Trump Jr.'s Instagram account, which mostly features photos of his children and dead animals, offers little to no pictoral evidence of a spouse.
In addition, a New York Times article from 2006 that's currently making the rounds does make you wonder how much of a connection there was between the two of them in the first place.
Here is how Vanessa, a former model, described the moment that she met her future husband:
"I'm at this fashion show," Vanessa Trump said, recalling their meeting in 2003. "Donald Trump comes up to me with his son: 'Hi, I'm Donald Trump. I wanted to introduce you to my son Donald Trump Jr.'"
The three engaged in a brief, awkward conversation.
At intermission, the elder Trump again noticed a gorgeous girl nearby.
"Donald comes back up to me again, 'I don't think you've met my son Donald Trump Jr.,'" Vanessa Trump recalled. She remembers responding, "Yeah, we just met, five minutes ago."
Six weeks later, at a birthday party at a New York restaurant, they were introduced a third time, this time by a mutual friend. Neither remembered the other. "We talked for an hour," she recalled.
Then suddenly, something clicked: Wait, you were at that fashion show. Wait, you're "the one with the retarded dad!" Vanessa blurted out.
When he proposed to her, it was with a ring that he got for free from jeweler at a mall in New Jersey—in exchange for publicly announcing his engagement there. (For what it's worth, that is the plot of precisely no romantic comedies.)
Again, while it's difficult to judge any relationship from the outside, Vanessa's description is markedly different from the heart-warming way in which Hugh Jackman describes meeting his wife of 22 years.
Maybe that's a good takeaway here: when someone asks you how you met your significant other, listen to how you tell the story, and if it doesn't sound anything like the way these 50 guys described meeting the women of their dreams, then perhaps he or she is not The One.
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