The truth about the women Donald Trump has loved.

We’re used to politicians with very stable, predictable relationships. It used to be part of their schtick; a loving, supportive wife by their side as they campaign or announce new policies or get themselves out of old troubles.

US Presidential Elect Donald Trump, 70, has broken the mould.  He has been married three times, has five children and has had a legion of girlfriends.

Here we profile the women in Trump’s very, very colourful life. Get ready for scandal and controversy, and probably more surprisingly, perhaps even love.

Ivana Trump

Ivana Zelnickova was Donald Trump’s first wife, they married in 1977 and divorced in 1992. Ms Trump, now 67, was an Olympic skier, born in Czechoslovakia. She met Trump in New York at an event to promote the Montreal Olympics. The pair dated for several years and tied the knot in 1977.

The couple have three children together; Donald John Jr. (born December 31, 1977), Ivanka Marie (born October 30, 1981), and Eric Fredrick (born January 6, 1984).

Ms Trump was active in the Trump empire. She was vice president of interior design for the entire company; the president of the Trump Castle Hotel and Casino; and, later, she took over as president from the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. In 1990, Ms Trump was named Hotelier of the Year.

Around the same time, rumours were circling that Trump was having an affair with former beauty queen from Georgia in the US Marla Maples. It's believed Trump took Maples everywhere he went. He would put her up in hotels, and sneak out of family vacations to spend moments with her, his mistress.

Ms Trump filed for divorce in 1991, after fatefully meeting Maples on the ski slopes during a Trump family vacation in Aspen, Colorado during the Christmas of 1990.

During the divorce proceedings Ms Trump made a rape complaint against her former husband, which was also included in the 1993 book Lost Tycoon by Harry Hurt. After the book was published, Ms Trump made the following statement:

“[O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage,” the statement said. “As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness which he normally exhibited towards me was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”

In 1994, in an interview with ABC News, Trump said "putting Ivana to work" was the reason their relationship fell apart.

“If you’re in business for yourself, I really think it’s a bad idea to put your wife working for you. I think it’s a really bad idea. I think that was the single greatest cause of what happened to my marriage with Ivana,” Trump said.

Marla Maples

It was a heated scandal. Trump leaving his family for his mistress, 17 years his junior, and marrying her two years later. Maples and Trump first met in 1989, and rumours of an affair circulated until Trump and Ivana separated in 1991.

Trump and Maples had a daughter, Tiffany, in October, 1993. They married in December of the same year (1000 wedding guests in attendance) and they separated in 1997. The divorce was finalised two years later.

They separated as 'friends' and there was, reportedly, no third party involved. But things clearly weren't that amicable.

In 1999, when Trump first floated the idea of running for president, Maples came forward threatening to "tell the American people what he is really like".

“If he is really serious about being president and runs in the general election next year, I will not be silent,” Maples told London Telegraph. “I will feel it is my duty as an American citizen to tell the people what he is really like.”

In response, Trump launched a campaign to discredit Maples and told Fox News she was in breach of a confidentiality agreement.

Maples stayed silent after that. And did not speak publicly throughout the 2016 presidential race. It is rumoured, however, that she was behind the leaking of Trump's 1995 tax returns that were made public by The New York Times in early October. The records show the tax benefits Trump reaped from the financial mess he was a part of the in the early 1990s.

Carla Bruni

In 1991, as Trump's divorce with Ivana was finalised and he and his new girlfriend Maples went public, speculation broke that Trump was also dating Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, then aged 23.

The cover of New York Post claimed Trump had banished Maples from their condo and Trump confirmed through the Post that Bruni was the "new one" in his life.

Bruni, who is now the wife to former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, denied this vehemently. She called Trump a "lunatic" in an interview with the Daily Mail, and said she had been deeply embarrassed by the false rumours. "I’ve only ever met him once, about a year ago, at a big charity party in New York. And I haven’t seen him since, of that I’m sure," she said.

Rowanne Brewer Lane

1990 was a busy year for Trump.

You might remember Rowanne Brewer Lane as the "stunning Trump girl" that the US President Elect asked to change into swimwear upon meeting her at a party at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida in 1990. He gave the then 26-year-old model Brewer Lane a tour of the mansion, and asked her to change into a bikini.

“That is a stunning Trump girl, isn’t it?” he said, as he led Brewer back to the pool.

This story was uncovered by The New York Times as part of the expose on how Trump behaves with women in private, published in May, 2016.

Brewer Lane, however, was upset at the way her anecdote was portrayed.

"[The New York Times] told me several times and my manager several times that it would not be a hit piece and that my story would come across the way that I was telling it and honestly, and it absolutely was not," she told Fox & Friends. "They spun it to where it appeared negative. I did not have a negative experience with Donald Trump, and I don't appreciate them making it look like that I was saying that it was a negative experience because it was not."

Brewer-Lane confirmed the pair dated for several months, and said Trump never made her feel like she was "being demeaned in any way".

Kara Young

In 2001, Trump dated American fashion model, actress and entrepreneur Kara Young. A fact that was used by some during the 2016 Presidential race to point out the Republican Nominee cannot be racist. Kara Young's mother is half African American.

According to Page Six, Ukranian model Victoria Zdrok told journalist Chaunce Hayden at Metropolitan Nights that she went on four dates with Trump. During one of these dates Trump referred to his relationship with Young.

“He told me he really likes this girl but he would never go out with her because he found out she was half-black,” Zdrok said. “He needed somebody more mainstream.”

Trump denies this, telling the same journalist “I never took her [Zdrok] out . . . it’s total bulls - - t. She looks like a third-rate hooker.”

Melania Trump

We know about Melania Trump, 46, the Slovene-American former model and now the First Lady Elect.

The couple met at a Fashion Week party in New York City in September 1998, while Trump was still married to, but separated from, Maples.

The pair married in January, 2005 and their son, Barron William Trump, was born just over a year later in March 2006.

Ms Trump will (most probably) assume the role of First Lady of the United States on January 20, 2017.