Ivanka was left 'vulnerable' by 'dysfunction and loneliness' in the Trump family, claims book
Ivanka Trump was heavily influenced and left "vulnerable" by her childhood and upbringing, during which her parents were mostly absent, claims a new book on the first daughter.
In 'Kusher, Inc: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump', author Vicky Ward featured several interviews with those who knew Ivanka from her younger days, with many revealing she had a lonely existence.
In one of the interviews, a friend, who is a real estate in New York but wished to remain anonymous, told Ward that the "dysfunction and loneliness of Ivanka's family, the absence of her parents from her life, put her in a situation where she was vulnerable."
Indeed, Ivanka's parents, President Donald Trump and Ivana Trump, divorced in a highly-public affair in 1992 when she was just 10 years old.
The divorce attracted severe media scrutiny, with articles published that referred to Trump bragging about his sex life with Marla Maples, the woman for whom he had left his wife.
Ivanka had written in her 2009 book, 'The Trump Card' that the divorce had brought her and her siblings closer together and fostered an "us-versus-the-world" mentality in them, but one of her childhood friends said she longed for a more loving family.
That friend revealed that the one time Ivanka came around to her house, she seemed very wistful of the relationships in her family. When the friend complained about how her mother was overly-critical of her, Ivanka responded with, "I wish my mother showed that much interest in me."
Ivanka's father-in-law, Charles Kushner, similarly said previously that she wanted to join their close-knit family because she had never experienced anything like it for herself.
Things did not improve much for Ivanka during her teen years either, the book claims. When she was 15, she moved to a boarding school in Connecticut, and a tour guide recalled how she turned up alone in a limousine.
"I felt really bad. The white limo just sat there and waited," they said, adding, "She was very nice. She was very shy, she was very quiet. But the part that sticks in my mind was the fact that no one was there with her. It was a big deal. It was weird."
But the one connection Ivanka always took solace from was the one she shared with her father, the book said. She would reportedly drop in on her father on her way to school and sometimes call him from the caretaker's cupboard during the day. He picked up every time.
She had called her father "terrific" during a 2013 interview about her childhood but did reveal that he was around more now that she is an adult than when she was younger. "He was a terrific father who was nothing if not accessible to us throughout our childhood and obviously today," she said. "Maybe more so today than ever."