Donald Trump’s Joke May Show a Similarity Between His Marriage to Melania & His Daughter Tiffany’s Marriage.
Mar-a-Lago has been at the center of many things: investigations, lavish parties, and even more lavish weddings. Former US President Donald Trump notoriously got married there in 2005 to Melania Trump (he got married to Marla Maples at the Plaza Hotel and married Ivana Trump at Marble Collegiate Church). Fast forward to today and Jarod and Alexa Malnik had their rehearsal dinner there.
“This is a great couple,” Donald said at the rehearsal dinner, per Page Six. “Nobody gets divorced ever when they get married at Mar-a-Lago. People, 20 years later, say it’s the greatest marriage ever.”
So, Donald claims that everyone who marries at Mar-a-Lago never divorces, and seemingly has happy marriages. Most recently, his daughter Tiffany Trump married Michael Boulos, a Lebanese-American billionaire heir, at Mar-a-Lago on Nov 12, 2022. Like Donald and Melania, Tiffany and Boulos keep their relationship quite private, and have a seemingly happy marriage (which Donald joked has everything to do with the magic of their wedding venue).
Now, Tiffany isn’t the only one of Donald’s kids to marry there. Donald Trump Jr actually married his ex-wife Vanessa Kay Haydon at Mar-a-Lago, and so did Eric Trump with his wife Lara Trump. (So, not every couple who marries at Mar-a-Lago, since Donald Jr and Vanessa Kay Haydon divorced).
But back to Tiffany and dad Donald’s similarities. Not only did Donald walk her down the aisle, but they both had weddings there, and Tiffany even paid homage to her dad’s marriage to Marla Maples: by recreating the custom, 7-foot-tall Sylvia Weinstock wedding cake they had at their wedding at the Plaza, per People.
I have read your column for years, and was particularly interested in your letters on estates and inheritance. I recently lost my elderly parents and now have a story of my own to tell. My mother just recently passed away last year in a dementia-care facility in upstate New York after surviving there through the COVID years — what a disaster that was.
My mother was placed in that dementia-care facility in 2018 by her husband of 26 years, my stepfather. He did not consult with my brothers or me at all about the placement or decision. I have two biological brothers. My stepfather had four children of his own from a previous marriage that helped him with this scheme.
I find this fact not only incredibly rude and disrespectful to us personally, but I find this evil in every way. He acted with a complete disregard of our existence. I consulted an attorney at the time, but there was not much I could do as my mother had assigned him as power of attorney and healthcare proxy years earlier.
I know that our stepfather was experiencing some health issues of his own, but he was the type of person not to reach out for help. Our mother was not ready for placement in the facility, and proved this by having her bags packed every time I had visited her in the facility for about a year and a half afterwards. She pleaded with us to “get her out of there.”
No amendments were made
Eventually the disease progressed and she did begin to deteriorate and settle into her new living situation by the end of 2019. My stepfather passed away in January 2020. He was a businessman and had an accumulated wealth of $14 million. Before their wedding in 1992, they signed a prenuptial agreement covering their marriage, divorce and death.
No amendments were made to the agreement. My mother was due to receive half of his estate and his children were to receive the other half. Unfortunately, as you might imagine, his children do not want to honor that agreement or our parent’s wishes. My stepfather signed over the deed of their home to himself and then “sold” it to his children three days before he passed away.
This was our mother’s home that she lived in for the last 28 years, and her name was on the deed from the beginning after they built it together in 1992. Her personal belongings are in the home. As I stated earlier, I had contacted an attorney regarding these matters and he advised me that the real-estate transfer was fraudulent and the prenup is still in effect.
We are four years into the estate hearings, mediation sessions and the illegal house-transfer case. I see these legal matters as black and white, so we presented the facts and will let the judge rule. Am I missing something here? It is a shame that our relationships with our step siblings have been forever ruined by these abhorrent actions.
To cut you and your two brothers out of the picture is bad manners. To do so when there is $14 million at stake is just plain rude.
Whether or not your case succeeds depends on the wording of the prenup, whether your stepfather had a will, and other variables — including the judge presiding over your case. Such 11th-hour U-turns on previous commitments are not so unusual, however, for a step parent or step siblings. Alas, this column is replete with such torrid tales. Legal action is often a necessary last resort.
A prenup is written while both parties are alive, and requires both spouses to sign it. A will, however, only requires one spouse’s signature, and they may decide not to disclose its contents, or even its existence, to their spouse. That’s where you are now — in the middle of an unwelcome, expensive and timely court case against your step siblings.
Let’s assume your stepfather had a will. “A prenuptial agreement is a contract and, assuming it was properly negotiated and executed, it is enforceable in court,” according to Jewell Law, a matrimonial and family law firm based in New York. However, the prenup will likely not supersede a valid last will and testament, the law firm says.
“For example, if the prenup states that the surviving spouse is entitled to specific assets, but the deceased spouse’s will bequeaths those assets to someone else, the surviving spouse cannot challenge the will on the grounds that the prenup stated the assets would belong to the survivor,” it adds. “To be clear, a will controls the disposition of assets after death.”
But other legal experts are more optimistic. If the probate court decides that the prenuptial agreement was negotiated fairly by both spouses, “then it will likely be enforced,” according to the Schomer Law Group, which is based in El Segundo, Calif. But both firms say that, in cases such as this, a breach-of-contract suit can be brought against the deceased spouse’s estate.
Benazeer “Benny” Roshan, chair of Greenberg Glusker’s Trust and Probate Litigation Group, is confident about your case. “The facts seem very favorable to Disregarded Son, so if he prevails, he should seek to have the cost of his prosecution shifted to his step siblings,” she says. “Some states allow that relief, which is comforting to those who risk life and limb — financially speaking — to get justice for a deceased loved one.”
Prenuptial agreement versus a will
I am, however, more cautious about calling the outcome. Laws vary by state, and each case will have its own set of circumstances that could affect the court’s decision. In an ideal world, it’s best for couples — particularly those who are in second marriages and have blended families — to have a prenup or will that complement rather than contradict each other. It would save you a lot of time and money in legal fees.
Some prenups contain a “death clause,” where the spouses agree that, in the event one of them dies, the deceased spouse’s estate is either (a) transferred to the surviving spouse or (b) should be distributed to the deceased spouse’s heirs — in this case, your mother’s three sons. If your mother’s prenup contained such a clause, it could determine the success or not of your case.
And what if there was a prenup and no last will and testament? In that case, the prenup could be used to override intestacy laws in your state, but it cuts both ways. “The majority of states will not permit a spouse to write the other spouse out of her will entirely. Yet, in that same state, the court may allow a prenuptial agreement to do exactly that,” the Schomer Law Group adds.
As for the issues surrounding the house and your mother being put into care: If your mother and stepfather owned the house as joint tenants, your mother’s half would automatically transfer to your stepfather upon her death. If that happened here, it may be that his decision to sell the house, nudged on by his four children, was merely sharp practice.
And your mother’s power of attorney and healthcare proxy? The power to act depends on the wording of the POA. One lawyer told me that a durable power of attorney allows the agent to act even when your mother was competent, so your stepfather could have emptied her bank account; a health care proxy, on the other hand, is usually activated when the principal cannot make decisions for themselves.
If there was a question over cognitive abilities, a court order or the opinion of two physicians would typically be required to move her to a facility. The fact that she did not wish to be there is understandably upsetting for you. Should he have consulted you and taken her wishes into account? Probably. Given his vast wealth, he could have hired home help, at least until her condition worsened.
When the judge rules on your case, please update us on their decision.
I started dating my ex-husband when I was 20. At 24, we got married.
I knew my marriage wasn’t right from really early on. It was like I was ticking boxes, but then once I had all the things society tells you that you want, I was really depressed. But I also didn’t really know what was wrong.
My ex-husband and I were married for a while, and for a number of years, I still couldn’t pin down my unhappiness. It really wasn’t until I was 29 that I started to become more and more sure of myself.
By that point, he and I weren’t in a good place. We were going through the pandemic lockdowns. When you’re stuck at home with someone you don’t really see a future with, it becomes pretty treacherous. We were having issues and had very different life goals.
He knew that I was attracted to women and nonbinary people, and he didn’t have a problem with that. We had what you’d consider an open relationship, and other women involved in our marriage. At this stage, it was purely a sexual thing.
I joined a gym called South Pacific in Hawthorn in Melbourne, and on my first day, I got up to go to a burn group fitness class at 5 a.m. I rolled out of bed to go to the class, and I was running late, which is on brand for me. I just sort of snuck in the background.
I was doing squats and trying to blend in, when I noticed Axel (Axe), the personal trainer instructing the class. I was like, “Wow!” I was immediately attracted to Axe’s appearance and energy. Then Axe saw me.
There was a whole class full of probably 20 people, and as soon as Axe noticed me, they gave me a lot of attention. As we did jumping jacks, they danced around me, singing along to the class music. It was quite a performance. Straight away, there was just this instant attraction. There was no doubt about it.
The class ended and I was walking out. Axe followed me out and asked, “I haven’t seen you here before, what’s your name?”
“It’s Morgan,” I said. They asked whether I’d had my health consult yet. I hadn’t. We went upstairs, and they booked me in right there and then.
When I came back into the gym to do the health consult, it was pretty much like a speed date. They asked questions that had absolutely nothing to do with my gym membership. “How old are you?” they asked. “Are you married? Do you want kids?” It was very flirty, and I felt a bit giddy afterward.
The health consult turned into us doing personal training sessions together. Then, we started having coffee after our personal training sessions, and that turned into Axe coming over on the weekend and us going for a walk.
My then-husband knew about all of it. Axe was coming to our house and even trained him in our backyard at one point. It was all very amicable and innocent at first, and probably from his point of view, he thought that I was going through some sort of phase. But I wasn’t.
As Axe and I were hanging out more and more, we were definitely getting closer and closer. It was turning into something more than a friendship. We said to one another that we needed to stop.
One afternoon, a few months after we met, I was at my desk at my house. Axe messaged me and said, “I don’t think I can continue seeing you.” I agreed. But then, just half an hour later, Axe asked if they could see me. I said, “Yes, please, I feel sick.” We just couldn’t stay apart.
We had this electric, magnetic energy that we couldn’t deny. We needed and wanted to be around each other all the time; it was like there wasn’t anything that we could do about it. The way that I felt was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I knew it would be doing myself such an injustice not to actually give it a shot. I had to talk to my then-husband about it.
Axe and I had to give it a shot
I told him I was unhappy in our relationship, and that it wasn’t working. I also said I was really enjoying hanging out with Axe, and I wanted to explore it further. I didn’t dislike him as a person — he just wasn’t my person. He had started seeing someone else around that time as well, which made me feel relieved.
My ex and I decided to separate and I moved in with Axe. Six months into dating, Axe proposed. They planned a picnic under a rotunda in a park, put a blindfold on me, and organized one of our friends to film it. As sweet and gorgeous as it was, it was awful timing because I was also getting divorced. I told them that I knew I did want to marry them, but that they’d have to wait for me to propose to them. I proposed two years later.
I had Axe’s ring custom-made — a square sapphire with circled edges and diamonds, and a Celtic band. Axe is quite unique, so I couldn’t just get an engagement ring that was already made.
I’ve always been someone who has these big dreams of what I want for my life. Axe just feels like the other half of me who is supposed to be on that journey. I know that I have that solid person who is never going anywhere, who would never do anything to hurt me. We’ve now been engaged since August of 2022, and we may look to get married next year.
Most people gravitate to what’s comfortable and normal, and Axe is so not like that. There’s never ever a dull moment.
