Vanessa Trump, the ex-wife of Donald Trump Jr., isn’t living with Tiger Woods yet, but she’s become a regular evening visitor to his sprawling Florida estate since they began dating around Thanksgiving, according to a report in the Daily Mail.
“She comes to his place on Jupiter Island. They’re not living together. She comes over maybe a few nights a week,” a source told the Daily Mail, referring to the golf legend’s $80 million home in the exclusive coastal community. Vanessa Trump, 47, reportedly lives about 20 minutes away with the five children she shares with the oldest son of President Donald Trump.
The news of this new celebrity power couple broke Thursday in the Daily Mail, two days after Woods, 49, announced that he won’t be back on the golf course anytime soon after rupturing his left Achilles tendon during practice.
It now appears that he may have Vanessa Trump to help with his recovery, while news of their romance shouldn’t be that surprising. Vanessa Trump and Woods both live in south Florida, and their oldest children, Kai Trump, 17, and Charlie and Sam Woods, 16 and 17, attend the same exclusive, $38,595-a-year school in Palm Beach. Moreover, Kai Trump and Woods’ son, Charlie, are talented golfers who aspire to turn professional, according to the Daily Mail.
On top of that, Woods is friendly with Vanessa Trump’s ex-father-in-law, even if he tries to stay publicly neutral about Trump’s MAGA ideology, according to Newsweek. Woods, considered one of the greatest golfers in history, was happy to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom award from Trump in 2019. And, just last month, Woods, who also broke racial barriers in the sport, was the guest of honor at Trump’s White House reception to honor Black History Month.
So far, Woods is content to keep his relationship with Vanessa Trump as low-profile as possible, according to the Daily Mail. They “just love hanging out, having dinner and schmoozing together,” the Daily Mail source said. “They’re sticking close to home, have decided not to make it a thing and go out in public. Not just yet anyway.”
But even if Vanessa Trump and Woods aren’t ready to go “Instagram official,” her children — ages 17, 16, 13, 12 and 10 — all know about the relationship, according to the Daily Mail. She’s also received the stamp of approval from her ex-husband, who’s also enjoying a new romance; he began dating Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson last year after breaking up with longtime fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle. A source told People that Trump Jr. is “cool” with his ex-wife dating Woods, who is considerably more talented and and accomplished than he is.
Trump Jr. is even fine with the relationship, despite Woods’ scandalous sexual history. Woods’ clean-cut public image and his marriage to former nanny Elin Nordegren, the mother of his two children, was rocked by revelations in November 2009 that he had a longtime mistress, Rachel Uchitel, according to Us Weekly. Multiple women, including a porn star, soon came forward to allege they, too, had engaged in affairs or hookups with the one-time golf prodigy, according to Us Weekly.
After Woods went to therapy for sex addiction, he and Nordegren tried to make their marriage work, but to no avail, as they divorced in 2010.
Since then, Woods has continued to show a preference for attractive blonde women, with Vanessa Trump being the latest. He famously dated Olympic ski champion Lindsey Vonn from around 2012 to 2015, and then dated another attractive blonde named Kristin Smith, who reportedly ended their two-year relationship in 2017 after she suspected that Woods had been unfaithful, according to the New York Post.
Woods’ penchant for romantic tumult continued with Erica Herman, his girlfriend from 2015 to 2022, according to Us Weekly. She stuck by his side as he recovered from a single-car collision that left him with leg injuries, but their relationship ended with a legal dispute over her request to nullify a nondisclosure agreement she signed, suggesting she should be able to do so under a federal law that protects alleged victims of sexual assault or harassment. But Herman subsequently dropped the lawsuit against Woods and clarified that she had never been a victim of sexual harassment or abuse at his hands, CBS News reported.
Meanwhile, Vanessa Trump also has enjoyed a colorful romantic history. Born to a well-off family in New York City, she became a Wilhelmina model and Manhattan-born girl-about-town who reportedly hired a publicist to leak the story that she dated Leonardo DiCaprio. She also was reportedly linked to a Saudi prince before then-real estate mogul Donald Trump introduced her to his oldest son at a 2003 fashion show. She and Trump Jr. married him in 2005.
But even as Vanessa Trump gave Trump Jr. five children, she reportedly had to deal with his alleged affair with Aubrey O’Day, when the singer was a contestant on Trump’s reality TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice.” Vanessa and Donald Trump Jr. tried to stick out their marriage, especially when his father ran for president for the first time in 2016.
But the marriage ended in 2018, as Trump Jr. began dating Guilfoyle, a fervent Trump supporter who was once married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom. A 2021 book by Washington Post journalist Carol Leonnig also revealed that Vanessa Trump dated one of the Secret Service agents assigned to her family during Trump’s first term.
Ultimately though, Vanessa Trump and her ex-husband have maintained an amicable, co-parenting relationship. She and their five children joined him and the rest of the Trump family in Florida after Trump lost the 2020 election.
In recent months, Vanessa Trump made no secret of her regard for Woods, even before news broke of their romance. The Daily Mail also reported that she has left “a trail of clues” on social media, showing that she was pining for the golf star. She’s spent the past few months, liking multiple videos and photos of Woods, as well as doting on images of him with his children and tributes he made to his late mother.