How a Divorce Cost Marla Trump a Billion-Dollar Fortune

Five days before her wedding, Marla Maples was handed a prenup and told to sign it. She'd asked for $25 million. The man she was marrying valued himself at $1.17 billion in that same document. When the marriage ended, she walked away with $2 million. How does a woman marry into a billion-dollar fortune and leave with almost none of it, without a market crash, a swindle, or a single failed deal? In this documentary: how a homecoming queen from a Georgia town of 661 people built a real career and a Broadway run of her own; how the fairytale "wedding of the year" at the Plaza was sold to the public while a very different document was signed behind it; the prenup placed in front of her five days before the ceremony, and the confidentiality clause that silenced her "whether fictionalized or not"; where the fortune actually went, from the career she set down to the five-year clock the marriage was timed to beat; and the wealth-protection lesson delivered by the one wife from the very same story who kept it all, Ivana Trump, who fought, litigated, and walked away with a fortune and her voice. If you've ever wondered how someone can marry into a billion dollars and be cut out of nearly every cent of it, this is one of the clearest cases there is. Subscribe for more stars who had it all and lost it: @fallenstarsstories Sources: Vanity Fair (Gabriel Sherman's reporting on the 1993 prenuptial agreement); The New Yorker and Maggie Haberman's "Confidence Man" on the timing of the separation; The Atlantic on the Ivana Trump settlement; and contemporary reporting on the wedding, divorce, and terms. Net-worth and settlement figures are the best available estimates and disclosures from public reporting, not audited totals. The disputed 1990 tabloid headline is noted as disputed; Maples has said she never said it. Visuals include generated imagery and licensed stock, with brief film and news clips used for commentary, criticism, and education under fair use (Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act). No copyright infringement intended. #marlamaples #donaldtrump #hollywood #fameandfortune #fallenstars