Donald Trump Jr. has had his fair share in the business of his mogul father and former POTUS Donald Trump. Raised in the Trump Tower, he got to experience the life of luxury from the moment he was born.
When he was just 12 years old, his parents divorced and Trump Jr.’s mother, Ivana Trump, got the custody of him and his siblings, sister Ivanka and brother Eric. In fact, at the time, it was Ivana who was spending much of her time with the children while Donald Trump was busy running his business and expanding to Manhattan.
As a child, Trump Jr. spent most of his summers his maternal grandparents in Czechoslovakia where he enjoyed going fishing. He also learned to speak fluent Czech.
Being a young boy and not being aware of how things worked between grown ups, Trump Jr. blamed his father of the divorce. “How can you say you love us?” the 12-year-old Trump Jr. told his father, according to a 1990 Vanity Fair article. Later, however, he said he was “manipulated” into thinking that Donald was the only one responsible for the separation.
“Listen, it’s tough to be a 12-year-old. You’re not quite a man, but you think you are. You think you know everything,” Trump Jr. said. “Being driven into school every day and you see the front page and it’s divorce! ‘THE BEST SEX I EVER HAD!‘ And you don’t even know what that means.”
After the divorce, Ivana received $25 million payout and wrote in her memoir: “Donald might not have been the greatest husband to me, but he was a good father to the kids.”
Ivana was heavily involved into the family business while married to Donald. She was the designer of the interiors at the Grand Hyatt Hotel and Trump Tower, as well as president and CEO of Trump Castle and also president and CEO of the Plaza Hotel.
As his father has always been a very powerful man, he was good friends with a number of celebrities. Speaking of those times and the life at Trump Tower, Trump Jr. wrote in his book Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us: “Even when Dad would bring home a celebrity, which he did often, I would usually run in the other direction.” That, however, wasn’t the case when the King of Pop was around. Michael Jackson owned an apartment at the Trump Tower and he was a frequent visitor of the Trump family.
Trump Jr. recalled he and his siblings had several playdates with the music icon. During an occasion, as he and MJ were playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the Nintendo, Donald gave Michael a copy of the game.
“Michael Jackson used to come up and he was our neighbor at Trump Tower,” Trump Jr. told Fox News. “So I was playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Michael Jackson! You know, this is in the early 90s—maybe even in the late 80s. Peak Michael.
“We’re playing Nintendo and Michael really likes the game. So my dad walks in and says ‘well why don’t you take the game Michael?’ And so I’m sitting there like….,” he said expressing disbelief.
“My parents made us work for the things that we wanted and it was one of the great things they did for us,” he continued.
“So that took me whatever it was time to earn it — I’m pretty sure Michael could’ve called Nintendo and said I want one of those. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, but he just took it. I was like, ‘What’s going on here?’”
After spending some time in Aspen, living in his truck and working as a bartender, Trump Jr. returned to New York in 2001 and he’s been working alongside his father ever since. During Donald Trump’s presidency, Trump Jr. was his chief adviser and helped with the campaign a great deal.
He has been supporting his father’s plan to run for president once again. However, when asked whether he considers running himself, he said at a Conservative Political Conference in Texas that he hasn’t “personally thought about” running for President in 2024.
Trump Jr. also added that “[unnamed polls have] me pretty high up the list if not at the top of it.” As quoited by People, he also said: “Who knows. The reality with that job is you also have to want to do the day job, right? It’s not just about the campaigning.
“I love being in that fight, I love fighting for the things that are out there, that I believe in as a conservative. I will do that irrespective. To want to actually get in that mix, is a whole different story.”
Trump Jr. was married to now ex-wife Vanessa for 14 years before they decided to untie the knot back in 2018. They are parents of five children.