Donald Trump once said that 'putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing'

Donald Trump and his ex-wife, Ivana, in 1989
(Image credit: SWERZEY/AFP/Getty Images)

Donald Trump's biggest piece of marriage advice circa 1994: "Putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing."

In a 1994 interview with ABC News, Trump explained that he learned this lesson the hard way after he put his ex-wife, Ivana, in a management role at one of his Atlantic City casinos. "I think that was the single greatest cause of what happened to my marriage with Ivana," Trump said, adding that he couldn't stand hearing her "shouting on the phone" when she was making business deals. "A softness disappeared. There was a great softness to Ivana, and she still has that softness but during this period of time she became an executive not a wife."

So for his next wife, Marla Maples, Trump explained that he decided to create a "star" rather than a business executive — a process he compared to "creating a building." "Unfortunately, after they're a star, the fun is over for me," he said. "It's like a creation process, it's almost like creating a building. It's pretty sad."

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Besides, he said, there's one big problem with your wife being a star: It gets in the way of dinner being on the table. "I have days where I think it's great," Trump said. "And then I have days where, if I come home — and I don't want to sound too much like a chauvinist — but when I come home and dinner's not ready, I go through the roof."

Watch the full interview, below. Becca Stanek

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