Tiffany Trump was only six when her parents had a bitter divorce, and Donald Trump was never a full-time parent to her.
When it comes to their children, parents try to love them all equally. They try not to show any favoritism so their kids don't get hurt. However, there are some parents who don't know how to find such a balance and end up alienating a child. Whether it's a lack of time or interest, they just gloss over their relationship with a child in favor of other relationships or work.
Donald Trump became the President of the US in January 2017. It's probably the most stressful job in the country but he had the chance to develop a relationship with his youngest daughter and fourth child, Tiffany, whom he shares with second wife Marla Maples, before taking on that role. The 26-year-old was only six when her parents had a bitter divorce, and Trump was never a full-time parent to her.
Maples chose to raise her child out of the spotlight but it made her a single mom. "Her daddy is a good provider with education and such, but as far as time, it was just me," the actress told People. "Her father wasn’t able to be there with day-to-day skills as a parent. He loves his kids. There’s no doubt. But everything was a bit of a negotiation," she added.
Tiffany told People magazine in 2016 that she grew up with her single mother in California while visiting her dad just during spring breaks from school. "I still see him on spring breaks or for Easter, I’m always at Mar-a-Lago with the family," the 26-year-old said. While visiting him was a tradition, they were only visits for a few months in the entire year.
She was seen at a few public events with her father and even tried to launch a singing career in 2011 but eventually decided to study at her dad's alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, according to the Business Insider. Eventually, she came to be known as a socialite in New York but wasn't an integral part of Trump's core group or his presidential campaign.
While all seemed well from the outside, there were fractures in their relationship. In 2016, she was present for a short time on the campaign trail and that helped them work on their bond, but it did not bring any lasting change in their relationship. "They always had a strained relationship her whole life, and it got exacerbated by the presidency," a source said. "It’s gotten much worse now."
In 2018, she toured with him to a few states, flew with him on the Air Force One, and attended the annual White House Easter egg roll. However, their already strained relationship had reportedly taken a nosedive since he took the office.
"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 said in 2018. "The last time she was at a family function with him, it was awkward for her and she didn’t feel totally welcome," they added.
In December that year, she posted a video of herself with older sister Ivanka Trump, who is a close aide of the president and probably meets him on a daily basis. Ivanka is believed to be Trump's favorite child. However, despite Tiffany's efforts, the relationship between her and her father hasn't improved.
She graduated from law school in May 2020 and it took her father four days to congratulate her, according to Business Insider. "Congratulations to my daughter, Tiffany, on graduating from Georgetown Law. Great student, great school. Just what I need is a lawyer in the family. Proud of you Tiff!" he said in a tweet.
This reportedly wasn't the first time he fell short as a parent. In 2019 fall, Trump's former executive assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, revealed that the US President didn't like getting photographed with Tiffany since he thought of her as overweight, according to Politico. The former executive assistant also joked that Trump wouldn't be able to pick Tiffany out of a crowd.
"I'm going to say it's just absolutely false. [Tiffany] is a wonderful person. She studies so hard. She's a great student," Trump said in response to the scandal, as per Business Insider.
Tiffany's relationship with her older half-siblings, Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Trump Jr., is also not great since their father left their mom, his first wife Ivana Trump, for then-mistress Maples. This dynamic makes Tiffany the outlier in the family and there is no proof that anything has changed between them more recently.
References:
https://people.com/politics/tiffany-trump-strained-relationship-dad-donald/
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/30/trumps-personal-assistant-fired-ivanka-tiffany-1479226
