Donald and I still really wanted to be together, but I was fighting to keep what we had privately, and once the world gets involved in your life, little by little it breaks it down until you forget what it was in the first place.
Every story was being made up. My true friends weren't the ones speaking. It was people who never knew me, making up stories. Even my local paper put a $1,000 bounty out for information about my whereabouts.
He never was just a real estate genius. He was always a star. He billed himself as the first entrepreneur, real estate sta.
He works his business and manipulates and keeps himself in front of the world.
He's part of the product and will make no bones about creating that image to bring the value up in his product, bring the value up in everything he touches.
I created a production company. Right now I am so happy in my work.
I don't think he cheated on me. During the marriage, I think he was there.
I finally said, I can't live being carried by this wake.
I have a little baby. She knows who I am. My friends know. My family knows.
I look back at old photographs and videotapes, and I go, Who was I trying to be? Who was I doing this for?
I loved this man. Yes, I was young, but it was my choice. I was romanced, I had Mister Charm all over me, and it was very hard to say no.
I met Donald Trump in '85. I ran into him several times throughout the years. We knew we had this connection, but it wasn't appropriate timing. So we'd spend a lot of time on the telephone. By '88, I knew I truly loved this guy.
I performed for nine months on Broadway, and then I went on the road with the show.
I think what he loved about me the most was that I wasn't part of that world. But once we were together publicly, he wanted to change me into that social animal.
I wanted to stay as far away as I could from that. That was the intention. But then Page Six ran my photograph and my name.
I was fighting for a bubble of privacy. I was constantly being befriended by people who would then betray my trust.
I was holding a reserve inside all along. When you're with someone as powerful as Donald, you have no choice. You can get lost within that power if you're not careful.
I was homecoming queen. I was star of my basketball team.
I was made to believe there was a plan in place for ending Donald's previous marriage. I pulled away because I wanted to allow him the time to deal with his wife.
I went to work. That was a turning point. When you have to do eight shows a week and your name is on the marquee, no matter what is going on at home or what's on the cover of the newspapers, you've got to do your job.
I'm happy to have had everything healed. We're fine.
I'm not a big believer in a thing called luck. I believe it has a lot to do with fate and just really having a vision of the way you would see your life.
I've always modeled myself after Ginger.
I've made peace with the past. I have learned a lot. I know who I am. I know where my strengths lie now. I don't want to jump in too quickly.
If we could have somehow stayed away from the public and the press, it might have been different, but every private issue seemed to be played out on the front page.
In New York, I had not had my name in the papers. Nothing really prepares you for a city like New York, especially when you become known.
It was like, We're not going to stop until we've shown that we can destroy this thing. So now the relationship is gone.
It's not what people would expect, spending that many years with a billionaire. We're in a place of mutual respect now.
My personal life was fair game. And that's what hurt me.
That took a big toll on our relationship-we would have a little argument: The next day there would be a story about him going out with another girl.
The press coverage was a destructive force in my life. It was destructive to our relationship. It was like a fire.
The problem with losing your anonymity is that you can never go back.
This relationship is going to be built on trust.
Tiffany is very proud to have the last name and she's proud of her dad.
We had nine days to plan a wedding. It would just happen that fast. One day, Donald just says, I'm putting it in the paper. We're on.
What was a really private and nice relationship was judged and made to be something ugly.
What was so amazing and sad about the media is that they would just make up places where I was. It was so far from the truth.
When I was 18, I joined the Screen Actors Guild, and after college I came to New York.
When that man wants something, he'll stop at nothing to get it. And I also believed in the good of him.
When we separated, I did not want to get in a slugfest. I had to take the high ground.
Before getting together with Donald Trump, Marla dated singer Michael Bolton.
While in high school, Marla was a star on the varsity basketball team.
In 1983, Marla was the first to win the Miss Resaca Beach Poster Girl Contest which sent her to the Miss Georgia contest.
Marla married Donald Trump on December 20th 1993, two months after she gave birth to their daughter Tiffany Ariana.
Since her divorce from Donald Trump, Marla has kept all her relationships out of the public eye.
After graduating high school and moving to New York, Marla's first major project was the film Maximum Overdrive.
Marla is a cousin to actress Heather Locklear.
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