IVANA'S LEGENDARY LIFE!

Savvy socialite died in freak fall but her success was no accident

IVANA TRUMP, who rocketed from rags to riches becoming the wife of a billionaire future president, a jet-setter, fashion mogul, and advice columnist, spent her last days in agony crippled by a hellish hip problem.

The 73-year-old ex-wife of Donald Trump and mom of his children Ivanka, 40, Donald Jr., 44, and Eric, 38, was found dead in a pool of spilled coffee at the foot of a sweeping staircase in her gilded Manhattan townhouse on July 14. It was a shocking and surprising end for the former world-class skier and socialite, who was buried after a star-studded funeral.

Longtime pal Zach Erdem, an owner of the Southampton hotspot 75 Main, says the four-times-wed QVC shopping channel mogul and former GLOBE advice columnist spent her last days in agony from hip problems.

She'd canceled a trip to the Hamptons two weeks before her death because of leg pain.

"She couldn't get out of her house," says Erdem, 42, who was first befriended by Ivana when he was a busboy at one of her favorite eateries.

When he urged her to seek medical help, she told him: “No! I hate going to doctors. I get more sicker going to doctors.”

She was so crippled she needed an aide to help her walk around the neighborhood and canceled a trip to France’s glitzy St. Tropez resort, say sources.