Ivana Trump, businesswoman and first wife of former President Donald Trump, died as a result of falling down the stairs, the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office revealed Friday afternoon.
The 73-year-old’s official cause of death is listed as blunt force injuries to her torso. Her fall has been ruled an accident.
Trump was found unresponsive and alone on a staircase in her Upper East Side home on Thursday, NYPD officials confirmed to PEOPLE. First responders pronounced her dead on the scene.
Toxicology reports and details about what may have preceded the fall have not yet been revealed.
Giuliano Zuliani, owner of a local restaurant that Trump frequented, tells PEOPLE she wasn’t doing very well when she stopped in with a friend two weeks ago.
“She didn’t seem to be in good shape. She could barely walk. She didn’t eat her food, she took it home with her,” Zuliani says, noting that she remained polite even so.
Prior to her sudden passing, Ivana had been preparing for a summer getaway, her best friend Nikki Haskell told Page Six.
“She was leaving for St. Tropez tomorrow. This was going to be her first trip away since the pandemic. She was afraid of getting the virus,” Haskell said on the day of her death.
“She was my best friend. I met her the night she met Donald … I can’t even tell you how fabulous she was, just a great friend, and the most amazing, inspirational person,” Haskell added.
The former president first announced her death in a post on his social media site Truth Social, calling her a “wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great inspirational life.”
Her daughter, 40-year-old Ivanka, posted a touching tribute to her mother on Instagram, sharing several family moments and the caption, “Heartbroken by the passing of my mother. Mom was brilliant, charming, passionate and wickedly funny. She modeled strength, tenacity and determination in her every action. She lived life to the fullest — never forgoing an opportunity to laugh and dance.
Ivana Trump shared three children — Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric — with the former president, whom she was married to from 1977 to 1992. She remarried twice after their highly publicized divorce, but did not have any other children.