Donald Trump's wife Melania slams his 'attention seeking' ex Ivana over US First Lady claims

Melania Trump, the wife of US President Donald Trump, has hit back at her husband's former wife, Ivana Trump, for calling herself the "first lady". Melania termed Ivana's comments "attention seeking and self-serving noise".

The US First Lady Melania Trump's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham has said that Ivana's comments have "no substance".

"Mrs Trump has made the White House a home for Barron and the President. She loves living in Washington, DC and is honoured by her role as First Lady of the United States. She plans to use her title and role to help children, not sell books," Grisham informed CBS News in a statement.

"There is clearly no substance to this statement from an ex. [T]his is unfortunately only attention-seeking and self-serving noise," Grisham said.

While promoting her book Raising Trump, Ivana had said that she still speaks to her former husband about once every 14 days on a "direct number to the White House".

Ivana told ABC News she was reluctant to call Trump too often "because Melania is there, and I don't want to cause any kind of jealousy or something like that" and added, "Because I'm basically first Trump wife, okay? I'm first lady, okay?"

Speaking about her children, she said she deserves credit for raising the US president's "fabulous" children.

"When Donald started to campaign, he was going on the debates, and [the kids] were going with him to rallies, people came to know them," Ivana, who split from Trump after 14 years of marriage, had said. "On the street and in the airport, total strangers were coming to me and they'd say, 'Ivana, how did you do it, to raise such a fabulous kid?'"

Ivana was married to the US president in 1977 but they divorced in the 1990s. They share three children — Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric Trump.