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Don Jr. Poses With His Dad’s Ex as Melania Skips Family Event

The president and Marla Maples divorced in 1999.

Donald Trump Jr. posed with his father’s ex-wife at his fiancée’s wedding shower, as first lady Melania Trump skipped the event.

Influencers, CEOs, and conservative figures like Erika Kirk, the widow of slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, descended on Mar-a-Lago on Sunday for Bettina Anderson’s pre-marital party. We covered some of the vent’s most garish looks here.

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The Most Heinous Looks at Don Jr.’s Socialite Fiancée’s Bash

Leigh Kimmins

But one person was notably absent: Melania Trump. A source told People that, fresh from her surprise Epstein announcement last week, she decided to swerve the event. Other Trump family members were able to make it, though.

Ivanka Trump was there, as was 32-year-old Tiffany Trump. The pair have different mothers. Ivanka’s mother is Ivana Trump, President Donald Trump first wife and Don Jr.’s mom. She died at 73 in 2022 after falling down the stairs in her New York City townhouse.

Tiffany’s mother, the president’s second wife, Marla Maples, was in attendance. She even posed for photographs with Don Jr.

“So happy to share in your love,” Maples, 62, posted on Instagram, sharing the images, soundtracked by U2’s 2000 song “Beautiful Day.”

Trump and Maples were married between 1993 and 1999. They had split for two years before the divorce after Maples was busted by a police officer with Trump’s bodyguard beneath a lifeguard stand on a deserted beach. Trump married Slovenian model and current first lady, Melania Knauss, in 2005.

One photo from Sunday’s Mar-a-Lago event shows the whole gang posing in a photo with Mackenzie Moon Phelan, daughter of Secretary of the Navy John Phelan and the event’s host, Amy Phelan.

People cited a “Palm Beach source” as saying Melania, Trump’s third wife, wasn’t at the bash. The source didn’t say why. She also skipped the baby shower Ivanka Trump hosted for Tiffany in April 2025.

Anderson, 39, and the 48-year-old first son got engaged at Camp David, Maryland, in December 2025. People reports that a White House wedding could be on the cards as soon as this spring.

The president was initially perturbed by the social bunny’s “eagerness to join forces with the Trumps.”

But a source told the magazine that Anderson, a socialite and model, could be eyeing a political role.

“This [a White House wedding] would set them up for future political roles, whether Don Jr. goes after the presidency or something else,” the source said. “This is a consideration.”

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The lavish event at Mar-a-Lago comes after Melania’s surprise statement on Jeffrey Epstein at the White House last week, when she denied having a relationship with the late sex offender or his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell; criticized media reporting about the three of them; and called on Congress to allow his victims to testify.

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