NAMES IN THE NEWS : Marla Loves Donald but She Won’t Take Rap for Divorce

In her first interview since her relationship with Donald Trump became public, actress-model Marla Maples said Thursday she loves the billionaire but insisted that she is not the reason he split with his wife, Ivana.

Maples, 26, said she agreed to talk publicly about the relationship on the ABC News program “Prime Time Live” to “take the heat” off family members who have been besieged by the news media.

She also denied that she confided details of her sex life to a friend, as summed up in the New York Post headline: “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had.” Pressed on the matter, Maples shook her head and said all the stories have hurt Trump.

Asked, “But you still love him?” Maples replied: “I cannot lie about it. Oh, I do.”

Maples, whose acting career has been confined to bit parts in a few films, said she has been trying to move up in show business but that the publicity about her relationship with Trump “isn’t the publicity I want.”

Maples said Trump does not support her financially and she was never motivated by money in her relationship with him. “I’ve always felt that, you know, as your mom says, it’s just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor man,” she said. “I think it all comes down to the heart.”

She said she declined million-dollar offers for her story because she did not want to take money for a story that “has to do with other people’s problems. I have to keep a bit of dignity.”

Maples, dressed in a conservative suit for the interview, said of Ivana Trump: “I feel she’s gone through a lot of pain. I can only imagine what it’s like to have your whole world as you knew it sort of shaken and put out there for everyone to see.”

Maples said Ivana Trump is “an absolutely beautiful woman. I think she was before surgery, and now she’s very, very gorgeous.”