One of Ivana Trump’s best friends always worried that Ivana might slip on what she called the beautiful but “treacherous” staircase at her opulent Manhattan home.
“I have to tell you something — that has always been my fear,” Nikki Haskell told Extra TV. “She had one of those really beautiful stairs that was impossible to walk down. Narrow in the inside and wider as it got out. I was always afraid that she would fail. I don’t know what happened, but it’s not hard for me to believe that’s what happened — treacherous stairs.”
Trump, 73, who reportedly had trouble walking and was in poor health, was found at the bottom of the stairs after either falling or going into cardiac arrest, authorities said. The city Medical Examiner’s office has deemed her death accidental.
Ivana often posed in her luxurious, multi-million dollar townhouse on East 64th Street with the staircase in the background. Gossip columnist Rob Shuter said Friday night on News Nation that he had visited the apartment — and also called the staircase “treacherous.”
“(The apartment) wasn’t as renovated and up to speed as you’d think,” Shuter said. “Those stairs were always dangerous. The carpet on those stairs were a little bit worn too.”
Haskell, who had dinner with Trump not too long ago, said that in recent years Donald’s normally outgoing and social first wife had become “reclusive.”
“The past couple of years, she became very reclusive… She had a big townhouse and she was really afraid of getting the virus, much more so than anybody I know. She did not want to go anywhere, she did not want to travel… She took it very, very seriously. She was afraid of getting sick.”
But Trump was reportedly about to rejoin the world, according to Haskell, and had been preparing to leave New York for St. Tropez where she had a home.
“She finally decided, ‘Okay, I’m going to go…’ She stayed in New York that whole time. She never left at all, and she was by herself and I am sure it was much more trying than I could even imagine.”
Haskell said she recently asked Ivana what her plans were.
“She said, ‘You know, Nikki, I have been working since I am 3 years old… I just want to rest. I just want to enjoy my life.’”
nypost.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism