 | « Back to article | Print this article |
United States President Donald Trump's daughter-in-law has filed for divorce from her husband Donald Trump Jr after 12 years of marriage.
Vanessa Haydon Trump, 40, the wife of President Trump's oldest son, filed for divorce on Thursday in a Manhattan court, a report in The New York Times said.
It said Vanessa is seeking an uncontested divorce to end her 12-year marriage with the president's son.
The couple has five children together.
Trump Jr, 40, the eldest of five children from President Trump's three marriages, met Vanessa, a former model, when his father introduced them at a 2003 fashion show. They married in 2005 at Mar-a-Lago, the family's club in Florida.
"After 12 years of marriage, we have decided to go our separate ways," the couple said in a joint statement. "We will always have tremendous respect for each other and our families. We have five beautiful children together and they remain our top priority. We ask for your privacy during this time."
The report added that last month, Vanessa and her mother had to be hospitalised as a precaution after opening an envelope containing a white powdery substance, which was later determined to be cornstarch, police officials said.
A Massachusetts man was charged with sending the threatening letter.
"No one should ever have to deal with this kind of sickening behavior," Trump Jr had said about the episode.
Trump Jr and his brother Eric, 34, took over the management of the Trump Organisation after their father was elected president.
The news of the divorce comes as the White House special counsel, Robert Mueller is examining a June 2016 meeting Trump Jr had with Russians offering information on Hillary Clinton and the president's role in allegedly providing a misleading response to The New York Times last summer for an article about the meeting.
Vanessa, a onetime model, was raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and once dated actor Leonardo DiCaprio, the NYT report said.
Vanessa and Trump Jr got married 10 months after Donald Trump married former model Melania Knauss.
In an interview last year with The Times, Trump Jr said a romantic evening with his wife included dinner at home and a movie.
The report said Vanessa frequently retweeted her husband's posts pertaining to family life, many of which include photographs of their weekends in the Catskills region of New York state.
However, her tweets about him appeared to stop in June 2017.
The last tweet referring to her husband was a family portrait in which she wished the president a happy birthday.
Trump Jr, who is active on Instagram, has posted mostly photos of him and his children in recent months.
The last photograph with his wife was a photo of the family in February, when they were in Palm Beach celebrating a son's birthday, the NYT report said.
IMAGE: Donald Trump Jr. with Vanessa Trump. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters