Usually, we’re talking about Tiffany Trump in the context of “she’s the forgotten Trump.” She didn’t grow up in New York, she wasn’t around her father for the most part. Her mother Marla Maples raised Tiffany in LA, and Tiffany lived most of her life separate from her father and her half-siblings, feeling like she was always in Ivanka’s shadow. But Tiffany got some time with her dad over the Easter holiday – she went to Mar-a-Lago for the holiday, and then Tiffany turned up at the White House Easter Egg Roll. So what’s Tiffany’s relationship with her father like now?
With rare, back-to-back appearances spanning three states, Tiffany Trump and her father, President Donald Trump, seem to be on something of a father-daughter reunion tour. This past week alone, Tiffany tagged along with her father as he gave a speech on infrastructure in Ohio; hitched a ride with him on Air Force One to Mar-a-Lago for Easter weekend (where they also attended an holiday church service together); and returned with the president to Washington, D.C. for the annual White House Easter egg roll.
Tiffany told PEOPLE in 2016 that since she grew up with mom Marla Maples, Trump’s second wife, in California, visiting her father on her spring breaks from school became a tradition. “I still see him on spring breaks or for Easter, I’m always at Mar-a-Lago with the family,” the Georgetown Law School student explained.
But insiders tell PEOPLE that behind the scenes, Tiffany’s already strained relationship with her father has hit new lows since he took office in January 2017, with the pair going months at a time without contact.
“Since the inauguration, Tiffany and her father have sometimes gone for months without speaking and she went a very long time without seeing him,” a source close to Trump’s younger daughter says. “The last time she was at a family function with him, it was awkward for her and she didn’t feel totally welcome.”
Although Tiffany, 24, was rarely seen on the campaign trail — especially in comparison to her far more visible older half-siblings, Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric — she did make appearances with her father in the final days before the 2016 election and also spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention in July. The source tells PEOPLE that Trump and Tiffany’s time on the road included “bonding moments” that brought the father and daughter closer together — but that closeness was short-lived.
“They always had a strained relationship her whole life, and it got exacerbated by the presidency,” the source says. “It’s gotten much worse now.”
While I think we’re all agreed that Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric are complicit as hell, should we give Tiffany a pass? I don’t know. I keep thinking about how difficult it would be to grow up the forgotten child, the child passed over constantly in favor of your dad’s “favorite daughter.” That being said, Tiffany is still making the choice to hang out with her dad on holidays and she’s right there for the White House Easter Egg Roll. Maybe she’s complicit too. Just to a much smaller degree.
Photos courtesy of Getty, Backgrid.
The child he wanted to abort. 🙁
This. All of the other children were conceived and born within the confines of his marriages. In fact, I think he married Melania, because she wanted a child and he agreed to one child. Marla forced his hand by getting pregnant (at least in his mind). I don’t think he ever really loved or respected Marla the way he does Ivana and Melania. Before anyone brings up the multiple affairs, I don’t mean respect in that way. I think he believes Ivana and Melania are in a different league than Marla and it shows in his attitude toward the children he has with those women.
Melania was a business transaction. Ivana was the only woman he ever respected, and she out-performed him in business-it shocked him and that shock turned into disdain.
But…he is willing to commend Ivanka for her business sense–thinking people will assume she got it from him, when she really got it from her mother.
trump has zero respect for women in general, let alone his wives.
Is there a possibility of anyone’s relationship with Trump getting better??
No one is going to tell The Emperump that he has no clothes, certainly not his thirsty family. But that has to get harder everyday when you’re still hanging on for $$ and brand recognition.
I kinda feel bad for her. You can’t choose who your parents are…but I also feel like she might not be smart enough to be complicit to what’s going on in the White House. My guess is she stopped by for a photo op because people were talking about their relationship. She wants to get something once he dies I would imagine.
If I were her, I’d be putting so much distance between myself and him, it’d be like he’s on Mars. History will NOT be kind to him.
Have to agree.
Law school doesn’t pay for itself. Maybe she was getting cut off? I remember her dodging dear daddy’s kiss at the republican convention and I thought there would be hell to pay for that one, as funny as it was. The other thing is that someone may have pointed out to her that she could potentially make contacts by being around while her father is the president. She could *try* to tread the line of meeting people in the background while not actually employed and involved in the current clusterflook.
What she ( and all of them) should get is a lifetime of therapy.
I’m definitely giving her a pass.
And I can’t blame her for going to his place – he IS her dad. And I’m sure she has low self-esteem because he’s so in love with Ivanka, and now Tiffany often seeks his approval (but is rarely good enough).
She’s not going around spewing hate or effing the people with shady politics like Ivanka does. She’s just an unwanted daughter.
I tend to give her a pass, too. Daddy issues are no joke and he is currently footing the bill for law school (nobody want those loans!)
I will give her far less of a pass as she reaches her late 20’s. To me, at that point, she should be old enough to branch out on her own financially speaking and have (mostly) gotten over the daddy issues.
Her mother has plenty of money. Tiffany doesn’t need her father to pay for her law school.
Marla got money but she did NOT get a lot of money. Go back and read the divorce settlement terms released at the time. Marla got 2million but it ended up being 1.5 half Million. after legal fees, which Trump made her pay her own lawyer. She did get a townhouse in Santa Monica area from Trump, home maintenance paid monthly and expenses paid monthly until her daughter turned of age, which is why Marla suddenly did Dancing w the Stars, after years of network asking, she needed another big chunk of change and could basically name her price because Trump was running for President.
Now that her daughter is an adult Marla doesn’t get monthly home living expenses stipends from Trump.
I wonder if she’ll be searching for a new wealthy husband. I saw her on a friends yacht in the tabloids. Lol,
MARLA even sold the engagement ring stating she needed the money. She got maybe 250,000 to 300,000 but I forget exCt figure.
And Donald made her account for every bill, she said, everything she needed had to be accounted for.oIt was said he couldn’t STAND Marla when they split and blamed her for everything even bankruptcies.
She could go to law school on student loans like the rest of the world, so little Tiffany does have financial security. She seems to idolize her half sister, which is sad, since she is the forgotten child. She is the fortunate child imo, but sure it effed her up psychologically. The boy will grow up to be like his brothers, probably at some point getting mentored by them since he was born so late in asshat’s life. None of us can claim to be from a dysfunctional family with these people around, they are just the worst kind of people alive.
Marla’s net worth is projected at $20 million, and Tiffany’s is projected at $600,000. She doesn’t need her father’s money. And she probably isn’t getting it. Generosity isn’t really Trump’s thing.
Take the 0 off and you have Marlas real net worth. She got 2million in the divorce settlement and no more than the townhouse in , near Santa Monica.
I use to see Marla around LA, Marla did not get big money like Ivana got. Ivana got the money, not Marla. Marla only got 2million. All those other projections are bull.
Nanny – Her self-esteem might be fine. She has a lot of other influences on her life. She’ll figure out her dad’s limitations and realize his behavior toward her has nothing to do with her, if she hasn’t already. She already has learned the Ivanka Shuffle to avoid Grabby Daddy, we saw that back at the convention.
So she’s keeping doors open with her father and her father’s side of the family. That doesn’t mean low self-esteem. It’s pretty normal.
I buy her explanation. She always spent Easter vacation with her father and his kids and their kids. He’s not the only one on that side of the family. In addition to her brothers and sister, she has a passel of nephews and nieces she may only get to see then. Who knows what will happen by next year and who will be in prison or exile or awaiting trial. This might be the last chance for the whole group to be together.
I doubt that she is dumb. She probably hasn’t yet come to terms with her father’s severe limitations with regard to relationships, so she still might be trying to please. Took my brother a whole lot longer. But even if she has her doubts about dad, she still might want to see other relatives. She might also want to be civil to dad if he is still paying for her apartment (is she still in law school? He might need a lawyer).
Did they ever have a relationship? I think it’s pretty clear that Donald doesn’t give a sh*t about anyone but himself. Tiffany stood no chance at being “close” with him.
And while I can’t stand any of the Trumps, I’m also the forgotten child, so I can understand how much it sucks when you’re trying to fit in with your father and his other family.
She’s not working for the administration like Ivanka.
She’s not actively using her position and connections to make money like her brothers. So not complicit.
So what do you call spending $22k of tax payers money on her security for a vacation? And that’s just ONE of her vacations.
http://www.newsweek.com/tiffany-trump-secret-service-cost-639758
Excessive and despotic possibly but not complicit.
Sorry, that’s normal for the immediate family of a President. They get security because they are at risk in a way that normal people are not. It’s a way for us to offer some degree of normalcy to family members despite the fact that their father or mother is POTUS.
Take a look at the obscene and growing military budget some time if you want to see a real waste of money. The money spent on Presidential family security is loose change in a poor man’s pocket in comparison.
OK, serious question: how is she possibly still in law school??? It seems that there are so many photos of her on weekend getaways (beyond Easter) and random travels, and she’s in her first year of law school at Georgetown.
Readers who went to law school: were you realistically able to go on weekend getaways during 1L? I admittedly have not been to law school and have no real sense of the time commitment, but imagine it would be hard to go on multiple vacations and still do well.
I guarantee she’s at the bottom of her class.
Why do you guarantee that? I live in DC and I never hear any gossip about “Tiffany” sightings. She was at her father’s house during spring break, but that isn’t to say she wasn’t studying.
I realize Don Jr and Eric have the brains of less evolved home sapiens, but we don’t know for sure Tiffany inherited those genes.
@Megan Law school is soul-crushingly grueling. You do not have time to do happy family photo ops, you do not have time to jetset to L.A. on the regular – which Tiffany does. You do not and cannot have a life if you want to do well. Law school is your life.
Not only is it doubtful that Tiffany got accepted into Georgetown Law on her own intellectual merit, she’s also not taking school as seriously as she should. Just read the other comments from former law students. My own experience mirrors theirs. Tiffany is definitely at the bottom of her class, but I doubt she cares.
I know a number of people who went to law school, including my husband, who just happened to go to Georgetown. Law school was demanding, but the idea that he didn’t have time for happy family photo ops or vacations is preposterous.
Tiffany graduated from an ivy league school and was also accepted to Harvard Law. Harvard is hardly an institution to look favorably upon a Trump.
Oh! Well, since you “know people,” you surely have a better grasp on law school than those of us who actually went.
To be at the top of your class in law school, you have to put in the work and make sacrifices. Of course, if you’re rich and well-connected, all you need is to graduate.
Personally, not only did I not go on weekend getaways or holidays, I rarely managed regular outings with friends. The workload was significant and at that time (early 90s), jobs were scarce and we were all terrified of not getting an articling position afterwards, so we had our noses pressed to the grindstone. I needed to get a job because I relied on significant student loans to go through school. I didn’t come up for air until I made partner. I suspect it is a different story if you don’t have that kind of economic pressure.
I wonder if the cyber age has made a difference for law students as well as other types of students. Maybe you don’t have to be so trapped in dusty law offices today in order to do your research. Even law textbooks might be portable now and there is such a wealth of information on the web, so all you need is a tablet or pad or at most a laptop with you to get a lot done.
She has the money to travel and also would not need to work a part-time job to earn for other expenses. Also she would have money to buy any book she wanted online (technical books in electronic form are still quite pricey, and I would assume the same is true for law books).
If law has followed the path of science, those dusty law books and journals may be all available in electronic form by subscription and she would not have to worry about the price. For example, the American Chemical Society (the main professional organization for US chemists) has already converted all of its issues of the Journal of the American Chemical Society to electronic form, maybe going back to sometime in the late 1800s but certainly to the early 1900s. Don’t know which other journals have done the same, but JACS archives are huge. I think they have done the same by now also for the old Chemical Abstracts, which cover everything else as well including whatever foreign journals they could get abstracted by scientists who knew the languages. Abstracts of journals in general in all subject areas have been available online since at least the 1990s – I had a subscription to the Knowledge Index on CompuServe back in ancient times and the local science library was becoming more and more electronic even then with access to many databases. Good thing for me since the perfume of the patrons and the dust and the sheer weight of those journal and abstract collections were all becoming too much for me….
I am not exaggerating about the physical strength needed to carry those bound volumes around. They not only were really big (think size of old major dictionaries in libraries and then double or triple it), they had thin pages so they packed a lot of weight into each volume. Libraries were running out of room for the things. Before they were rescued by computer databases, they went to compact shelving where you had to pull apart the shelves on tracks and get into the small space between two shelves to access them. I even had a scary claustrophobe’s nightmare once when the shelves started moving in on me….
Anyway – my guess is that law school is much more compatible with travel today in the cyber age, particularly for people with money.
that’s a good point @jwoolman. I went to law school before laptops and online resources. We had a lot of (heavy) texts and case books so we studied in the library or at home, and you couldn’t research remotely. Current technology allows more freedom to work from different places, but I think brings different challenges with distractions. I suspect the workload is similar to what I experienced so to succeed she’ll still need to be able to carve out the time wherever she is to focus on her course requirements.
When I was in law school, I didn’t travel regularly, but I did make a few weekend visits to friends out of town. I brought my laptop, blocked off an afternoon to hole myself up in my friend’s apartment work, and told her to go out with her other friends. It was fine. Basically, I think @jwoolman is right about technology making a difference. I don’t know how often Tiffany Trump travels, but I think it’s totally possibly to get away for a weekend. I think I also remember seeing an article about how she was posting a picture of law books on her instagram during fashion week as proof that she was really buckling down. I don’t know enough about her to know how serious she is taking law school, but I think with her name and family connections, all she needs is the degree. I doubt she’ll have trouble with her career if she’s not on law review.
She’s wealthy, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she has an “arrangement” with the school that gives her an easier schedule. Otherwise, most of the Masters/Doctorate level individuals I know are pretty damn busy toward the end of the degree.
Law schools see a 50% drop out rate in the first year. You have absolutely no life. Not sure how Georgetown does it but many law schools require “full year” classes for that first year so that one test in May is your only grade in that class for the year. It is grueling. I couldn’t tell you a single movie or song released during my law school years. I had a huge fight with my sister because she wanted to get married during the time I would have been having finals and I would have to make a choice between attending her wedding or taking final exams in order to finish my degree on time. (She moved the date.) I had friends I only saw in the summer. Holidays were extremely stressful because time was so limited.
However, I suspect Daddy wrote a huge check to Georgetown so Tiffany only shows up when she wants. The bar exam will be different.
I have a JD from Georgetown. IL year is tough. Beyond that, it calms down quite a bit.
Like Missy said, she has GOT to be bottom of her class. It was a toss up for me, Georgetown or George Washington, and I went GW. No law school I know of gives a student the leeway she’s taken, but certainly not Georgetown.
I had classes year round, broke up with my boyfriend first year and, basically, had zero dates for the remaining years. I was either in class, the law library (no online research back in the day), studying or clerking. Vacations consisted of trips at Christmas to be with family, maybe a long weekend at the beach between summer sessions and spring/fall semesters. Law students have no life. Tiffany’s some kind of joke, and she’s making Georgetown one too.
A lot of questions have been asked about this, and I read she has abandoned school. Maybe a deferment?
I can’t speak to law school, but I’ve been in both medical school and physician assistant (MS) school. in both programs the stress/studying/classes/labs/clinicals take up literally ALL of your time and there’s no summer break. We did get off for the holidays (including some Jewish holidays because I went to a Jewish medical school) but it all passed in a blur. I had some classmates that got married at the end of the second year of medical school or in fourth year. MS4 is essentially the only “easy” part of medical school because people are studying for boards and going on interviews for residency – and that’s no picnic either. I remember one of my professors in med school saying that first and second year was like drinking water from a firehose and that’s a pretty apt why to describe it. I would imagine law school is fairly similar. At the end of the day, though, everyone has to pass the bar/medical boards to practice and no amount of money or privilege is going to change that fact.
Tiffany could manage some weekend photo shoots with family in law school. I went to law school many years ago and fun time could be fit in if it was carefully scheduled. Go to church with Trump et al and then go and study for a few hours. Have dinner @ Mar-A-Lago, study for a few hours, then go to bed. I used to work 10-15 hours per week when I was in law school. It was tough but I worked hard. So doing other stuff is possible.
Everybody’s law school experience is different. For sure, some people spend all their time studying, had I done that, I would have burned out and not survived. I went to class regularly, but I absolutely had a life in the evenings and went away on the weekends.
In the first year final exam is the entire grade, so I picked up my studying a bit towards the end and finished in the top 10% of my at a top 20 law school.
Alternatively, I had a friend that took the opposite tack, she did all the assigned reading, but never went to class and got on law review. Different things work for different people.
Many people did spend all their time studying, some of them did better than I did, some did worse than I did. But for people to assert that because they studied all the time, that’s the only way to be successful at law school is ridiculous.
We can tell nothing about her success or failure at law school based on how often we see her out and about.
I agree 100%. I spent the majority of my time studying, but I still had to eat, drink, and exercise to keep my sanity. Many of us were on recreational sports teams, and we visited our families and went to our friends’ weddings.
However, Tiffany’s extracurriculars are in a league of their own. She still hangs out with the LA #richkids even though Georgetown is in DC, she attends New York Fashion Week, and her freaking publicist is working overtime to score her party invites (there was a Celebitchy article on it recently). Not to mention her familial obligations. Maybe she’s a genius who doesn’t need to study that much to do well, but I doubt it.
I have long suspected that tiffany was a whoopsie. I don’t think she holds much favor with her ahole father. He provides for her but that’s about it. There’s no connection there. But let’s be honest. He’s such a narcissist and void of any love or empathy that having a relationship with him would be mute. He would throw anyone under the bus including his own children. He’s all about him.
It’s not even suspicion, from what I understand. He more or less bluntly stated in an interview with Stern that she was a surprise pregnancy and not a welcome one at that. The rumors of the time speculated that Maples did it on purpose to get him to divorce Ivanka, too.
@Veronica S. And yes, Trump also admitted in several interviews that his three kids by Ivana, wanted him to overlook Tiffany and cut her out of the will because they were jealous and more importantly didn’t want to “share the wealth.”
So Tiffany has known for a long time that she’s the forgotten one and an outsider in her “family.” In time she may come to feel that it’s a blessing in disguise!
@ aims. : Not a suspicion. A fact. Marla was the mistress and when Trump and Ivana broke up, Marla became the girlfriend. She wanted to be the wife and when Trump wouldn’t go for it, Marla got pregnant. The pregnancy was a move to force Trump’s hand.
Tiffany represents a time in Trump’s personal life he’d rather forget. I don’t know the details of the split with Maples but the first wife Ivana is correct: once a man strays repeatedly and then assoc ongoing problems, there is no trust. The marriage must end. Ivana was very clear about that point.
And what explains his treatment towards Barron?
Does he also represent a time that he’d rather forget?
I mean, the guy simply doesn’t care about his kids with the exception of Ivanka and that’s only because he views her as an extension of himself.
I feel like he encouraged vicious competition among his first three, and ‘Vanky was the most cut throat of them, that ‘s why he favors her. A real chip off the old block.
Melania wanted Barron and Donald agreed when she promised she’ll lose weight after the child’s born. So the boy wasn’t an accident (I hate that expression for a child) but he wasn’t particularly wanted by his father either.
Barron’s Melania’s boy and it shows. And I hope he stays that way. Whatever you think about Melania, she’s nowhere near as evil or twisted as Donald.
Barron was a business transaction and completely within his control. Tiffany represents when he wasn’t in control–and he never let that happen again.
I disagree that Melania isn’t as evil or twisted as Trump. She hates making public appearances, but had no problem doing so when she was pushing Trump’s birther agenda. She helped normalize Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women. She is free to walk out the door, yet she stays because she is just as greedy and just as willing to accept ill gotten gains as the rest of this vile bunch (if she is as avid a reader as Kessler claims, she has a pretty good idea of the extent of Trump’s crimes). She doesn’t get a pass just because she is smart enough to stay off Twitter.
Think Melania would have agreed with him and backed him if they had had a daughter? Would she be there, nodding, smiling and agreeing with everything the orange buffoon was spouting while raising a girl?
In her own words, inadvertently self-revealing Ivaka says that at 8yrs old she thought her father divorcing her mother meant she wasn’t a Trump anymore and she had to do everything possible to remain a Trump.
She devised strategies that kept her a Trump. Most involve soothing her father’s ego, and always calling him after school to ask after his say. As a result she became his favourite child.
Her brothers took awhile to reach her conclusion. Don Jr even rebelled and left the nest, but he was reeled back in and joined the game of staying Trump whatever it takes.
It looks as if Tiffany is being reeled in. I predict she will join the fame soon enough. Ditto Barron when he reaches adulthood.
One recurring theme about Trump, he has never shown interest in any of his children when they were young or teens, regardless of why he fathered them. He is a consistently absent father who leaves the child-rearing to the mothers and maternal grandparents.
Ivanka refused to be ignored and ingratiated herself with him even if 5mins was all the attention he would give.
He started showing interest in the 3 older kids once they reached late teens / early adulthood and only because he could talk business with them. I predict this is what’s happening with Tiffany and will eventually happen to Barron.
@Megan – I guess we disagree. I doubt Melania really cares about where Obama was born. She seems apolitical. She went to the TV show and said what her husband wanted her to say because that’s what’s demanded of her as his wife. And divorcing him during his time in the office would screw her up more than him, so she’s smart enough to play along. That IMO doesn’t make her evil or twisted.
When I’m saying it would screw her up more than him, I don’t just mean financially. Trump has power. He can separate her from Barron (while he doesn’t care much about the boy, he sure would use him to screw with her), he could probably get her deported (surely he knows how shady her papers are), his worshipers who praise her now would turn on her too, and that would be messy. If any of the stories about her past are true, AND EVEN IF THEY AREN’T, all would come out and blow in her face. She plays along because she’s got enough sense for self-preservation.
I’ll always feel sorry for her (and Barron, but especially her). You can’t choose your parents. But as someone who goes months without talking to my dad too, you want a relationship anyway you can get it. Maybe it’s ingrained in us as children. It’s complicated, and hers probably even moreso. Is she using who daddy is to, say, get into law school or something? Why not? But I don’t think they’ll ever be close.
Having a shitty father is a hard pill to swallow I find, especially for a daughter. I’ve tried for years with my dad but now at almost thirty, I’ve stopped trying. My SO keeps telling me to stop stressing about it because obviously it’s not causing him any stress. I never wanted money or anything from him(he has none anyway), just wanted a relationship where you can talk to him if need be but it’s impossible. Last time we spoke I had just suffered a miscarriage at 18 weeks, all he said was “maybe you’re better off, you are a very impatient person” 😰
I think your SO is correct, sorry to say. It sounds like your father has zero empathy. Read about living with a narcissistic parent, or maybe some therapy, if you have the time and means. I’m sorry you had to hear those cruel words. You didn’t deserve that.
Thank you. That’s what my mother says, that he’s a narcissist. The pieces fit, that’s for sure. After my mother divorced him, for years he would get so mad at me for not calling him on his birthday, but he never called me on mine and I was so young. He treats my brother and sister the same too, they give him more of their time and put up with it. I just see him at Christmas and other holidays. I remember when my SO built me a house, moved myself and our three year old daughter at the time, out of a shitty basement appartment in the city. Dad never once said congrats or any other kind words. All he said was that he’d never see my daughter anymore. I literally moved an hour away, to a beautiful small community where my SO grew up, only half hour from the small town my dad is from, where I grew up.
The way you describe your dad reminds me so much of my BF’s dad. He’s just a miserable person, can never say a nice thing about anyone of anything, treats my BF’s sister like complete garbage (during her wedding last month he was introducing himself as my BF’s father, not “father of the bride” or “Jenny’s dad”) and he favors my BF only because my BF is so tolerant and forgiving of his incessant bullsh*t.
I witnessed so many awkward interactions between my BF’s sister and her dad at the rehearsal dinner and before the wedding etc. It made tears well up in my eyes and a lump form in my throat. Like, EMBRACE YOUR EFFIN DAUGHTER ON HER WEDDING DAY! Tell her she looks beautiful and that you’re proud of her, you ass!!!!
But he couldn’t be bothered SMDH.
I’m sorry for the tangent but I just wanted to say that I feel for you so much. My dad was far from perfect but he was a good man and a consistent presence in my life. I think that so often we underplay the importance of the relationship that daughters have with their fathers. It’s SO important.
My BF’s sister has minimal interaction with her father because she’s found it’s the easiest way to maintain her emotional well-being. I think you are right to let him go as hard as it is. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. Every woman deserves a loving father.
@Kitty My father is a total narcissist who can’t see past the end of his own nose. When I was a kid he didn’t seem as bad, but when my parents split up when I was in my 20’s, it became clear how much my mom shielded us from his selfishness and utter lack of compassion or empathy.
I was your age when I cut him out of my life completely. I cannot begin to describe the relief I felt when I no longer had to be the one carrying the burden of that relationship. It was then that I truly came to understand the meaning of the word “baggage.”
Kitten – Your BF’s father wounds like a classic narcissistic who is emotionally abusive toward his children, honestly. They usually have an “unfavorite,” on whom they dump the majority of the abuse, while the other children are treated well or even brought in on the bullying.
It amazes me to see a Narcissist in action because they don’t care what anyone else thinks and they behave like jerks in front of people.
@kitty I am sorry about your miscarriage. That was a cruel thing he said and as painful as it is your SO is right. He will only hurt you over and over again. You deserve better than that.
@kitten What an a-hole. FFS.
One of my close friends has a father who is a Narcissist, and he only pays attention to her successes but when she needs support he says sweet things like Life is crap so what do you expect? Do you realize you being sick is harder for me than it is for you? You didn’t get the job because fat people don’t get ahead and don’t lie and say you haven’t gained weight. On and on he goes.
It never ceases to surprise me the things he says without shame. He berates her about her weight even though she is a successful extended size model. She is gorgeous, talented and a good hearted compassionate person but he refuses to acknowledge anything but what he finds wrong. He even told her she should be ashamed of herself and he isn’t proud of her. No real model is her size, and she only works because people are just politically correct losers who won’t tell the truth about fat people. It isn’t what he thinks but believe him people are laughing at her. He is only concerned for her because he knows he finds it embarrassing so she should too.
I am paraphrasing, but that is the gist. She tries to ignore him, but it hurts and crushes her against her will.
For all the survivors of Narcissistic parents, my heart goes out to you.
Yes thank you, guys. I DO think he’s a narcissist.
@Veronica- Yes he absolutely tries to encourage competition between the children and also tries to play them against one another. It’s so sick. At first, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt because he’s my BF’s bio dad but I gave up pretty quickly when I witnessed the aggressions firsthand. Also, my BF doesn’t exaggerate and he’s not a sh*t-talker by nature but he is 100% aware of his father’s manipulative behavior. He and his siblings form a united front against him, thankfully, which ensures that their dad will never get in-between them. I also wanted to add re: the importance of the relationship between father/daughter: my BF’s sister endured a string of terribly abusive relationships before she met her now-husband, who is a great guy who adores her. My point being that this man’s actions did not occur in a vacuum and really messed her up for most of her life.
@Magnolia- Wow. What a heartless bastard. I honestly don’t know how people like your friend manage to overcome the trauma of growing up with a terrible parent and become great adults. I guess it’s a testament to her inherently good nature and emotional strength. Sigh.
Yep, I feel sorry for Tiffany. Narc fathers are nothing but sperm donors (sorry, but it’s true). They may be charming or friendly sometimes, but any relationship with a narc is ALWAYS one-sided. It’s HIS way or NO way.
I do feel sorry for the 3 older kids a little, because they never stood a chance. I think Ivana is a narc, too, but to a lesser extent. With 2 narc parents, odds are you will emulate them. And, that’s exactly what happened with Ivanka and her brothers. They’re the doppelgangers of their parents, fully endorsing the insanity & nasty “business.” They’re ghouls with no real personalities or a moral compass.
Tiffany will see that a real relationship with her father is futile, unless she starts to emulate Ivanka 100%. That means getting extensive plastic surgery, talking business, and working for Trump’s ego. If she doesn’t do this, then the relationship will be bad. He will probably criticize her a lot to fall in line. She may fall in line just to have a relationship with her father, or if she’s greedy, to have a crack at the money. Or, she may go the other way and find it’s not worth it. At some point, she may realize that it’s futile and break away. While it may hurt, at least she won’t become a servant to Trump’s ego, and can live on her own terms.
As a daughter of a narc, I feel for her. To be rejected by your parent can be so painful, and some kids will go to any length to maintain any kind of a relationship. For years, I did this with my narc father, hoping he would snap out of it, and see me as his daughter and become a real dad. It didn’t work. He’s simply incapable of loving anyone but himself. He’s not a toxic person like Trump; he’s just empty and 200% self-absorbed. He never asks how are you, how is work, how is your boyfriend, etc. It’s always ME, ME, ME. He talks–I listen & nod. As you would expect, we have a distant relationship. I keep the peace to not upset my mom, basically. She knows my father is flawed, but tolerates him “as is.” If he was as toxic as Trump, though, we would both abandon him. My mother is a very forgiving person, but says that Trump is pure poison. We wouldn’t be around that man for any money in the world…
I hope that something good can come out of the Trump presidency debacle. I hope that people will realize just how terrible and destructive narcs can be and learn to avoid them altogether. AND, certainly never vote for one for president again.
I hope some kids of narcs will also wake up or become more self-aware. They might realize that putting up with narcs is not worth it. Or, that emulating your narc daddy or mommy will only get you hated.
The truth is that narcs like Trump–if he didn’t have money–he would be completely alone. That’s often what happens with narcs. I often go to a nursing home to visit a family member, and the elderly narcs never had visitors. Even other seniors avoided them. They were bitter and alone. It was really sad.
That will be Trump’s fate if he goes to jail or loses all his money. He will be completely alone. If it happens, it will be well deserved.
Sorry for the extra long post. Narcs always get me going.
Trump, always wearing those gigantic dark suits and too-long red ties..he looks like a clown.
He does, doesn’t he?
I truly have a hard time looking at photos of him. Between the suits, the hair and the orange face…. Ick.
And I’m not even going into what he’s like as a “human”…..
He is so effin frumpy. My GOD, Just no excuse with the money he has to look like such a bum. He should take notes from this man right here:
https://ioneglobalgrind.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/485741043.jpg?w=1024&h=773
President Obama is just flat out fine as fuck. Beautiful inside and out.
I was listening to Pod Save America’s interview with Joe Biden and it was really interesting. What really stood out to me is how much affection and respect Biden has for Obama. They have a really special relationship and I always loved watching them together. On a side note, Jon Favreau from PSA is my new political nerd crush. And seeing him and Obama in pictures together? MEow.
Yes!!! The tan suit!
@ Elysium1973 – YES. He really is such a handsome man.
Also, I love Pod Save!!
They have had so many former Obama staffers on their pod and it’s always a testament to what a great man Obama is in how they speak about him. They speak of his integrity, how humble he is (remember what it was like o have a humble POTUS? *sobs*) and how noble he is. It’s so heart-warming to hear because it reaffirms what myself (and many others) always intrinsically felt about him.
Sigh. I just miss him so much. I’ve never cared so much about a politician before in my life but he was just so damn special. Imperfect yes, but such a genuinely GOOD person.
Trump could look fine with proper tailoring to fit his ever-expanding body.
I wonder if he doesn’t do that because he sees himself as 35 years old in the mirror (he told Dr. Oz that). So he might really think photos that show otherwise are taken at the wrong angle or maliciously photoshopped.
He does take pains to use makeup and color his hair for certain events, although he doesn’t seem to bother most of the time since the election. He looks so different in his natural state, although much more normal. No, his skin isn’t naturally orange….
It’s not a professor, or a colleague or even a friend. It’s her father. Parents can be as awful as they please, and often times their children will still seek their love, approval and acceptance. Parents can treat their own colleagues, friends and the general public-at-large like dirt. Parents can be racist, misogynistic, lying cowards and their children will still seek their love, approval and acceptance.
I think when people crucify the Trump children, they are forgetting or ignoring how powerful is the need of a child to be loved by their parents. 900-something poor souls loved Jim Jones and the lord so much they were willing to give their lives for that love. So it comes as no surprise to me that the Trump kids linger around their father and jockey for favorite. I’m able to have compassion for them, along with distaste.
Many of the people at Jonestown were murdered. It’s not hard to find the tapes online and you can hear people trying to get away. One woman openly argued with Jones and the few survivors say she was forced to drink the flavor aid. Sure, some people were completely brainwashed and willingly drank the poisoned juice, but if you listen through the tapes you can hear plenty of people trying to get away, and that they were then forced to drink. One woman hid under her bed for hours. A lot of people were murdered at Jonestown (including a sitting senator who was investigating Jones, and the children who had no idea what was going on and were, again, audibly, forced to drink by the adults. Don’t confuse victims of a mass murderer with the Trump family. I agree internal family dynamics can be compelling, but that has nothing to do with what unfolded at Jonestown.
Yeah people always forget that part of the story–many of Jim Jones’s victims tried desperately to resist the infamous Flavor-Aid, all to no avail. IIRC Jim Jones, Jr and two of his other sons were at college playing basketball so they avoided that fate. Jim Jones, Jr’s pregnant 18-year-old wife was not so lucky.
Leo Ryan, a congressman from CA, was the politician killed @ Jonestown, along with 4 other people. A young aide, Jackie Speier, accompanying him on that trip was shot 5 times on the runway & seriously injured. She recovered & is now a congresswoman after serving in the CA assembly.
https://www.rollcall.com/news/jonestown-murders-jackie-speier-37-years
Daddy’s destroying the country and is a huge ass joke. Sue him for whatever your attorney can come up with, change your name and fuhgettabouthim.
She would like to be complicit but they won’t let her in. She didn’t get a chance to be indoctrinated into the family nor is she part of the company so she might as well be a stranger. Bottom line, the don’t trust her. She would have to go on National TV and promote Daddy’s lies or shout the praises of her Dad like those spooky TV journalists with Sinclair.
The problem is much bigger than Sinclair.
Sinclair are taking advantage of deregulation of the media in 1996 (read about it here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 ) which allowed consolidation of all the media owning companies.
The road to wrongdoing is paved with good intentions because the result of that act was that media companies were consolidated from about 50 competing companies and different voices / opinions to only 5 or 6 big companies owning the lot. It’s one of the reasons MSM is terrible and or seemingly speaks with only one voice because when the 5 or 6 companies, of which Sinclair is one, send out an opinion company – wide, the result is parrot reporting across the board.
Sinclair was called out because it’s Trump supporting, but you can be sure the other 4/5 media conglomerates are doing exactly the same thing with the companies they own to deliver the preferred message to their audience.
It’s the reason MSM sucks all round.
LAK I feel like I haven’t seen you in awhile. Always enjoy your comments
There is also a proposed merger between Sinclair and Tribune Media Company. I believe where it stands now is that the FCC has “paused” the review of the merger, allowing for some stations to be sold so it doesn’t look as bad. It would be a doubling down on awful.
I think you’re right TC. She would like to be in deeper but she wasn’t around enough. I’m sure she has a lot of emotions around her crappy father – all of the kids must! But she’s enjoying the Trump name attention (see trying to get front row tix to fashion shows) so she’s always going to keep her foot in the door. PS: Maybe she’s getting a law degree to represent herself when she’s left out of the will lolllll.
She probably has to show her face every so often so he doesn’t forget her in his will.
Assuming he has any actual remaining assets to bequeath…
This. He has always been totally cheap toward Marla and Tiffany. My impression is that both of them are pretty liberal but can’t talk too much. If we think we have it bad with him as Pres. imagine him as a Dad who didn’t want you. (And I believe he judges her as not attractive enough). Still people often want some relationship to their parents so I don’t blame her one bit. Many give Melania a pass, who as an adult knew what she was signing up for, Tiffany deserves one too.
Speaking at the RNC convention is complicit. Showing up at an Easter event your father is hosting when getting together at Easter is the only sliver of tradition you have with him is not being complicit.
Thanks to her mother, poor Tiffany has been encouraged to glom onto Trump for money. She’s there to remain present in his considerations. She may yet become a full blown grifter like the rest of them once she gets a law degree, if she gets one…She doesn’t seem to be any smarter than the rest of them. If she was, she’d focus more on her studies and less on partying with other rich kids.
Marla and Tiffany know the score. They keep their mouth shut to avoid problems. They’ve never been in on the big take. It seems to me that Ivanna made sure her kids were indoctrinated into the mob family early on, and sometimes I think Ivanna is still the real wife who runs things behind the scenes.
I’m old enough to remember when the Ivana/Marla drama was going down. I’ve always believed Cheetolini wanted to stay married to Ivana and just continue to have affairs. But Marla got in Ivana’s face in real time and Ivana was done. (She also pretty much took home the whole safe when she divorced). Cheetolini *also* didn’t want a baby with Marla, but she got pregnant and refused to abort. I’m not sure when in that time frame they married, but it’s always been pretty clear that he felt Marla manipulated him into a place he did not want to be and he hates her for it.
Well then you also remember that at that time when dating Marla but still married to Ivana, he allegedly dragged Ivana down the stairs by the hair and married-raped her. So don’t think he wanted to stay married to her. When Trump is done with someone he is done.
But he wasn’t done with her. You think Cheetolini abusing somebody means he is done with them? No. Abusers love to keep their victims. He wasn’t done with Ivana. That doesn’t mean he loved her (though they still talk often today), but he liked the set-up he had going where he could have his cake and eat it too, and he resented Marla for getting Ivana to force him out.
They married after Tiffany was born and he dumped Marla just before the value of the prenup went up — he divorced her within a specific time frame so he wouldn’t have to pay Maples more money.
I know of a family who had a very tense, strained relationship. The adult children only came to visit once a year to collect a cheque for gifts for the grandkids. Tiffany may feel she has no choice; she has to visit if she wants law school paid for. Only now, since her father’s infamy, she has to provide some positive press coverage and photo ops to earn her keep.
I think she could make it on her own if she tried. It would take time to overcome the shadow of her last name though.
Good lord how can one talk about her being “complicit” and “maybe not giving her a pass” because she wants to spend holidays with her father? How many kids in this world yearn for approval from, and just simply love their fathers even though they might be utterly detestable as people?
@BigD I imagine all the kids whose parents have been deported, or at risk of being deported, or are themselves at risk of being deported, or are threatened and belittled for their race, or their gender, or their faith, or all the LGBTQ kids, might have a few things tobday about how sorry they feel for poor poor helpless innocent Tiffany who had no house but to praise her dad’s policies and how mean the nasty Internet is to her 🙁 🙁 🙁
This completely.
Preach it a million times. There are real victims and she isn’t one of them.
Here in California, ICE keeps grabbing parents when they are dropping their kids off at school. I have no sympathy for anyone associated with the Trump administration.
My husband works for a sub contractor associated with Seattle school district. The feds showed up a couple weeks ago looking for undocumented immigrants. Its unprecedented in Seattle. We have a friend who is a High School teacher. One of her DACA students just killed himself because he was terrified of being deported. He had lived in the U.S. since he was a toddler and knew no one in his country of origin.
What’s going on with undocumented immigtants is Hitleresque.
Thank you. It’s her father for hell’s sake. I don’t have to like him but of course, she wants his love.
@Shelley please see my above post.
Is she complicit in the treason? No. But does she want in on the fleecing of the US taxpayers? Yes. We spent over $160,000 on CARS for Tiffany’s vacation in Italy last summer. She gloms on whenever and wherever she can.
I imagine the cars were the decision of Secret Service for security. I’m sure they have specific requirements.
Like it or not for the Trumps, the fact is that they are at risk because their father is POTUS. It would be unfair to not offer the same sort of security arrangements we would to any family of a POTUS just because the current one happens to be a vile and dangerous person. The idea is to allow family members to lead a reasonably normal life, with less risk of a hostage situation that would affect the ability of the POTUS to deal with the situation unfettered. The fact that the current POTUS wouldn’t miss any of his family members and would continue to enjoy his cheeseburgers in bed while they were held hostage is irrelevant.
These security costs are higher than normal because the Trumps are a large family that travels. They still have to be protected regardless. Will some of them try to abuse it for profit? Of course, they’re Trumps. Good luck proving it, though, considering how such costs are unavoidably so entangled. But still the security is needed whether they are traveling for business or pleasure or school or whatever.
Complaints about the costs are a red herring distracting from real concerns about government spending. Security for the family, wherever they are, is a miniscule part of the total budget and a much better use of tax money than the impossibly bloated military budget, which just keeps growing and growing pointlessly. Reagan doubled the military budget to $300 billion, enriching the military industry (such as his friends at General Electric, who put him into politics and were acquiring half their profit from work on WMDs at the time) and making us less and less safe. It just kept going up from there. Back when it was less than $450 billion per year,we were spending more on the military than the entire rest of the world put together. The profitability of WMDs and wars drives our foreign policy. You can’t buy new bombs until you have used enough of the old ones.
Meh. I’m giving her a pass at this point. The kid wants a relationship with her dad, he’s the only dad she’s got. It’s sad, I only see their relationship getting worse and farther apart as time goes on, and he’s using her. But it’s only natural for her to have that hope that maybe he’ll, like, show her the fatherly love that he’s actually probably incapable of for any of his kids but especially the two youngest. When she gets an office at the White House or starts running his businesses for him and speaking on his behalf, then I’ll call her complicit. Until then, I’m just gonna look at her as a fatherless girl trying to have a father. Also, at this point, he can’t turn around and say she never tried (which they will do, I’ve seen it happen).
He needs to be nicer to her considering she’s probably the only one of his kids who will visit him in prison.
@Shannon please see my above post.
the resemblance between tiffany and trumpito in that top photo is striking. I wonder if that’s one of the reasons why he doesn’t like her – she looks much more like him than the rest of his children (even Ivana’s sons still look like her), and unlike Ivanka, doesn’t appear to be going after plastic surgery to alter her looks.
Definitely NOT giving her a pass. Trump and his values are beyond awful and she still chooses to align herself with him. I can understand feeling like you “have to” spend Easter or other high holidays together, but an infrastructure speech in Ohio? Nah. Also, I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to cut off a parent, BUT, I have several friends who did just that. They cut off their absolutely toxic, gaslighting, abusive parents completely, including the parents’ contact with their spouse (who was obviously very supportive of their partner). They all say they are so much healthier for it. I fear that I might one day be in that situation, and if push came to shove in a real way, I woudl probably cut off contact as well instead of continuing to suffer mentally and emotionally. It CAN be done. Tiffany gets no pass from me.
Imagine it was public knowledge that your father wanted your mother to abort you. I feel for her. She probably can’t wait for this nightmare of a presidency to be over. Also imagine Don Jr and Eric were your older brothers.. NIGHTMARE Yuck.
IT’S INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK AGAIN????
I saw somewhere yesterday (on film) her rather artfully executed “duck and sway” to avoid one of his creepy cheek kisses that he has become notorious for-you know, the kind he bestows on Ivanka (and previously Hope Hicks) every chance he gets. That gave me a little hope in/for her.
Sorta random: I would be willing to bet that he’s had his own kids sign NDAs.
And no, Tiffany does not get a pass. Tiffany was an as*hole BEFORE this mess. She campaigned, She shows up for the photo ops as ordered. She accepts his money. She can f*ck right off with the rest of them.
I have always figured that she and mom demanded a certain amount of cash for going along with the campaign. And unless they got it up front, I bet he never paid. I don’t think he pays anyone If he can get away with it. And now she’s tagging along for either more money or to get him to fork up what’s already promised.
But then again, I literally can’t understand how anyone bears him for more than a minute. I’ve always found him repellent in his smarmy egoism.
I’m ambivalent about her. And Kitten, when you say Trump feels Ivanka is an extension of himself, I interpret that as he’d like to f-ck her. I’m assuming that was your meaning? It’s sad that Tiffany tries to belong by joining the Easter Egg hunt. They couldn’t rightfully exclude her from that and she went. They’re a terrible family, but it hurts to be rejected by a terrible family, too. I’m sure Freud would agree.
I don’t know if I actually believe that he wants to f*ck her.
A commenter who is much smarter than me posed the theory that he’s obsessed with her because he views her as his greatest creation: a leggy and beautiful blonde who presents herself as a smart overachiever. I think he has essentially commodified her like he has with all of his real estate developments. She’s just a shiny thing that he can show off and point to as a great accomplishment of his, like Trump Tower.
The other commenter articulated it far better than I did here (smarter and more articulate, apparently), but what she said really rang true with me. I know a lot of people disagree, but to me that theory fits in nicely with a narcissistic personality.
Totally agree. He is more proud of her than he is of his own sons because she represents the type of woman he thinks is the epitome of value – smart, beautiful, and classy – all thanks to her mother’s efforts because Ivanka is the one who taught Ivana how to carry herself.
its obvious tiffany trump was how Marla trapped Donald
unfortunate he treats her as such
Nope. Grown-ass men cannot be “trapped” by women. Please do not perpetuate that misogynistic trope.
trapped, planned surprise, whatever it is. Marla had Tiffany to try and get Donald to marry her as Nikzilla said
Actually they can. When a woman says she is on birth control but she is lying and becomes pregnant in order to financially manipulate someone – that is a trap.
we call that a “keep a man baby” but that rarely works.
She recently clicked “like” on an anti-GOP Instagram, so her presence at these functions may have been demanded of her as damage control. I would imagine he threatens her all the time with cutting off the funds she needs for law school.
I’ve heard mutterings that Jared and Ivanka are on the outs with Dad (via Twitter). When’s that gossip becoming official gossip?
Every time I see her and then see pics of her mother, I just die a little inside. Genetics can be a cruel mistress. Marla Maples was a Bad B, in her prime.
Kitten, thanks for your articulate and smart response. And no, I don’t believe the other commentator did it better than you.
I think Tiff looks a lot like Ivanka pre surgery.
I don’t understand how any of Trump’s kids can stand to be around him. Why would you want a relationship with a man who physically and emotionally abused your mother? I don’t get it.
I have a very conservative father. I’m liberal and so are my two sisters. I don’t think it’s fair to judge Tiffany for spending time with her father. He’s her father. No matter what political affiliations they have and/or ignorant (and sometimes horrible) things they say and do they are still your parent. You still spend time with them because you love them. Tiffany’s not part of his cabinet. She’s not helping him govern or taking any part in the decisions he’s making. It’s not even clear what her political leanings are. I think we should reserve judgment until or if she says or does something herself to deserve condemnation.
What I find especially pathetic about this too is because she’s the “daughter stand” in during the Christian holidays when Ivanka isn’t there. She was there at Christmas, she takes place in Easter celebrations, she goes to church with him. I don’t think she’s “complicit”-I just think she’s trying to get her dad’s attention-whatever crumbs he’ll throw her way.
Daddy doesn’t care about her because she’s not a “10” like his favorite daughter.
Maybe Trump wants Tiffany around because Ivanka and Jared are on the skids and he needs a replacement young blond daughter hanging around.
After this whole Presidency has gone down in flames, who in their right mind is going to willingly go to a lawyer with the last name of Trump????? She should change her major.
She should at least change her name… maybe take her mother’s last name. Trump is going to increasingly be a liability. She won’t do that as long as he is paying for her residence, but she will figure out that focusing on law studies is a more secure route to making more money than she would ever get in his will. And hopefully she will realize he doesn’t love her because he can’t love anybody, it’s nothing to do with her and she can’t fix it. She is expecting a blind man to distinguish colors.
There may be little money left, anyway. Plus if he is still married to somebody, usually the spouse gets the bulk of the estate although who knows what his plan is. I think all his family should assume he will be broke by then.
Narcissists tend to have a “golden child” and a “black sheep” among their kids. They do play their children off one another, just like they tend to play other people off one another to maintain dominance over everyone (and Trump has been seen to do this with aides and employees).
Ivanka has clearly always been the golden child, but narcissists can turn their affections on a dime, because they aren’t real affections.
Ivanka and Jared are in some hot water, and Trump may well have decided they’re making him look bad. A narcissist can’t abide that, so he might have started slotting Tiffany into his “golden child” mental space because Ivanka is irritating him right now.
Since he pays for law school I’m sure she has to show up once in awhile and keep up appearances. The best thing Marla did was raise her daughter far away from Trump.