How Ivanka Trump is trying to make a comeback in high society after being shunned for joining her father in politics

• Ivanka Trump's time in her father's administration came at a high social cost.

• Reports said that losing friends and heavy public criticism helped convince her to leave politics.

• As her father seeks a new term, Ivanka is instead focused on re-entering US high society.

Ivanka Trump said in November 2022 that her time in politics was over, and that she wouldn't help Donald Trump's 2024 campaign.

Ivanka Trump was notably absent from former President Donald Trump's campaign launch in Palm Beach, Florida.

In a public statement after the launch, she said: "I love my father very much. This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics."

Source: Insider 

The announcement hinted at the personal cost she paid for playing a public role in Trump's political career.

An unnamed source told the New York Post that Ivanka wanted out — and to live "as normal a life as she can."

She and her husband, Jared Kushner, have three children: Arabella, 11, Joseph, nine, and Theodore, six.

Source: The New York Post 

Prior to working in the White House, Ivanka was a businesswoman, runway model, and fashion designer. She was popular.

Source: Insider

She has been famous her entire life. She even starred in a 2003 documentary about growing up rich and famous.

As an avid Manhattan socialite, Ivanka was often invited to red-carpet events and has been pictured with other celebrities, including Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

Source: Insider

That started to change when Trump launched his 2015 presidential campaign, putting his family front and center.

Ivanka joined him on the campaign trail, making high-profile speeches at events like the Republican National Convention in July 2016.

When he won the 2016 election, Trump soon appointed Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, as unpaid White House advisors.

Source: Insider

During her time in the White House, Ivanka faced fierce criticism from those who wanted her to use her influence to stop Trump implementing some his policies.

Source: Insider

In 2017, major retailers ditched Ivanka's clothing brand following customer protests and weak sales.

Some of the retailers who dropped Ivanka's clothing brands included Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Gilt, and Burlington.

In July 2018, Ivanka was forced to shut down her fashion company, saying in a statement: "I do not know when or if I will ever return to the business, but I do know that my focus for the foreseeable future will be the work I am doing here in Washington."

Source: Insider

That same year, "Saturday Night Live" aired a fake commercial for a fragrance called "Complicit" which featured Scarlett Johansson and mocked Ivanka's role in the White House.

The skit's voiceover described Ivanka as "the woman who could stop all this, but won't."

Source: Saturday Night Live

The commercial appeared to upset Ivanka, who "couldn't stop bemoaning it" at a senior staff meeting, Omarosa Newman, a former political aide to Trump, said in 2018.

Source: Vanity Fair

In a separate interview, Ivanka responded to the skit by saying: "If being complicit is wanting to be a force for good and to make a positive impact, then I'm complicit."

"I hope to make a positive impact, I don't know what it means to be complicit, but I hope time will prove that I have done a good job and much more importantly, my father's administration is the success that I know it will be," Ivanka told CBS Mornings.

Source: CBS Mornings

In 2018, a string of celebrities whom Ivanka followed on social media made a concerted effort to shame her over the Trump administration's policy of separating migrant children from their families at the US border.

Ivanka said that she was against her father's family separation policy and urged him to end it, calling it  "a low point."

But celebrities — including fashion designer Alexa Chung, and actress Amy Schumer — were not happy with her response.

They launched a "Dear Ivanka" social-media campaign, which involved sharing an Instagram post saying: "Dear Ivanka, you follow me on social media. You said family separation was a 'low point' for you. The low point is for the separated families."

"You spoke in the past tense. The crisis is still ongoing," it continued.

President Joe Biden signed executive orders last year aimed to dismantle Trump's immigration policies over the years.

Source: Insider

When Kushner and Ivanka traveled to Rome for a wedding in 2019, other guests shunned them to avoid being in the same photos, Vanity Fair reported.

Source: Vanity Fair

Ivanka also lost many friends due to her role in the White House.

Lysandra Ohrstrom, Ivanka Trump's childhood best friend, said that their different stances on social issues led to them growing apart.

"I think it's past time that one of the many critics from Ivanka's childhood comes forward – if only to ensure that she really will never recover from the decision to tie her fate to her father's," Ohrstrom wrote in a tell-all essay published in Vanity Fair.

Source: Insider

Ivanka was hurt by how friends "turned their backs" on her during her father's administration, an unnamed source told The New York Post after she said she wouldn't return to politics.

Source: The New York Post 

After Trump lost the 2020 election, a Vanity Fair report claimed that Ivanka and Kushner would not be welcomed back in some New York circles if they tried to return to the city, citing interviews with former friends.

"They'll be welcomed back by people who know the Trumps are as close as they'll get to power," one former friend told Vanity Fair.

"But everyone with self-respect, a career, morals, respect for democracy, or who doesn't want their friends to shame them both in private and public will steer clear," they added.

Source: Vanity Fair

Ivanka and Kushner ended up choosing Miami, Florida, over New York City and have been spending time with their three children.

A source told The New York Post that she "hated all the criticism and the threats" that came with being in politics.

Source: The New York Post

Since leaving politics, Ivanka has been going on holiday with her family to countries including Greece, Egypt, and Israel.

Ivanka has continued to keep a distance from her father as he battles multiple, high-profile lawsuits

Ivanka and her family are staying "far away" from Trump even though they live in the same state, Page Six reported, citing two separate and unnamed sources.

She even left him out of an Instagram post showcasing images of her daughter's bar mitzvah celebrations in June. She only included a picture of Trump in her Instagram Stories.

Among other lawsuits, Trump is, at the time of writing, fighting federal charges of mishandling classified documents after his presidency.

Source: Insider

Meanwhile, Ivanka appears to be trying to get into certain social circles again— at least in California, where she was spotted partying at Kim Kardashian's birthday bash.

Kardashian posted photos of the event on Instagram, including a group photo that included Ivanka, who wore a stylish, sparkly white, two-piece set.

In another photo Kardashian posted to her Instagram story, she and Ivanka were seated next to each other and appeared to be laughing.

An entertainment attorney with high-profile clients previously told Insider that she wasn't surprised to see Ivanka and Kardashian together as Trump's eldest daughter is "trying to establish herself as separate and apart from her father."

"Although Ivanka has supported her father, even working for his various companies and in the White House, she has really tried to distance herself from him in the aftermath of his presidency," Mitra Ahouraian told Insider's Kelsey Vlamis and Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert.

"I'm not at all surprised that Ivanka has managed to re-engage with her social circles and establish herself as separate and apart from her father," Ahouraian added.

Trump's New York fraud trial is reeling his daughter back into his drama.

Ivanka recently testified in her father's New York civil fraud trial.

New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges that Donald Trump lied about the value of company assets to obtain favorable loans, claims the former president denies.

At the time, Ivanka was an executive at the firm, but told the court she had a hands-off relationship.

Her involvement in the trial is another example of the difficulty Ivanka has faced trying to extricate herself from her father's controversial business and political careers.

"There's no way that she walks out of this trial further distanced from the controversies surrounding her father," Dan Alexander, author of 'White House, Inc: How Donald Trump Turned the Presidency Into a Business', told BBC News.

"It's going to be an uncomfortable place for her, and I don't think that reputationally, it's the direction that she wants to go."

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