How to become a princess if you are a former drug addict, waitress or swimmer
'15.03.2019'
Source: Lenta.ru
The stories of British princes' marriages with "commoners" Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle are not the only ones of their kind. Nowadays, many descendants of the crowned heads prefer to marry for love, choosing girls not of blue blood, but often with a dubious reputation or just a way of life far from royal.
Moreover, in the 20th century, princes from different countries married not only girls and women of “decent professions”, but also adventurers (the most prominent of them was Wallis Simpson, the marriage with which cost the British king Edward VIII crown and reputation) who had problems with drugs (or men who had such problems). However, the most spectacular princesses, perhaps, are obtained from former actresses and sportswomen. "Lenta.ru report»Chose six princesses of the 20th and 21st centuries with unusual biographies.
Grace Kelly
The memoirists and authors of celebrities' authorized life stories complained more than once that the Hollywood film star of the first magnitude Grace Kelly, the sex symbol of 1950-s and the real standard of feminine beauty, lost her mark, becoming the wife of Prince of Monaco Renier III Grimaldi, changed the title of the uncrowned screen queen to only princely. Kelly, who played only ten films (but which ones!), Had the Oscar award, the unofficial title of the muse of genius Hitchcock and the highest fees among the actresses of her time.
Grace can hardly be called a commoner, although she was born in America, where there are no titles. Her father was a very rich Philadelphia industrialist and construction contractor, her uncle was a playwright, a Pulitzer Prize winner, her mother served as a fashion model before marriage (Grace got the perfect figure and the beautiful face of the Snow Queen). From birth, the girl was raised in the Catholic faith, which certainly played a role when the Catholic Rainier chose his bride.
They met in the 1955 year on the French Riviera, where Hitchcock was shooting his third film with Grace “Catch a Thief”. After him, there were only three pictures with the participation of the actress: becoming a princess, she completed her short (from 1952 to 1956 year) career. The wedding was played for two days: the civil ceremony took place on April 18, the wedding - April 19 on 1956. Grace Kelly was crowned in a dress that was sewn for her not in fashion houses, but at work at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio: the studio’s contract with the actress was not expired at that time, and the employer controlled the image of her employee more) and highly paid. The author of a modest fitted dress with long lace sleeves and a closed collar, more than decent by Catholic standards, is MGM costume designer Helen Rose, who wore an actress for the films "The Swan" and "High Society" (by the way, Rose had two Oscars , more than Grace herself).
The princess gave birth one after the other two children - Caroline Margaret Louise (one year after the wedding) and Albert Alexander Louis Pierre, now Prince of Monaco Albert II (a year later). Seven years later, a third child was born - Stefania Maria Elizaveta.
In its double star status - film actress and princess - Grace attracted the close attention of journalists, including serious publications. Thus, a picture of her appeared on the cover of Time magazine, where she masks a belly-rounded abdomen with a bag of the French house Hermès. The house immediately realized how lucky he was, and the model that got on the picture has been called Kelly ever since (and it has been recorded for months in queues to this day). By the birth of Albert, the house produced a special shawl-square with the emblem of the principality.
The authors of numerous biographies of Grace argue that, despite the title, wealth and fame, Princess Grace was not happily married, although her husband was not bad-looking and was only six years older than his wife. One way or another, the former movie star led a social life, attended charity events, ordered jewelry from Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier. In 1982, the princess had an accident (she, while driving, had a stroke). As a result, Grace died, and her daughter Stephanie, who was also in the car, was injured.
After the death of his wife, Rainier III no longer married, and her youngest daughter behaved much more freely than princesses should: in particular, Stephanie married first to her bodyguard, and then to a circus artist. We can say that the origin does not always play the main role: their “commoner” mother was a much more traditional princess than her noble daughter.
Charlene Wittstock
Charlene, Princess of Monaco, the husband of the son of Grace Kelly, Prince Albert II Grimaldi, is a woman of quite simple descent, but rather titled - if we talk about sports titles. The first of them, the South African professional swimmer Charlene Linnet Wittstock won 18 when she won the South African Championship. Then came the fifth place in the relay at the Sydney Olympics, three gold medals at the 2002 World Cup of the Year and other lesser prizes. Charlene did not go to the Beijing Games: the official version is a trauma, the unofficial one - small chances for a decent place.
In 2006, the future princess changed the modest position of a school teacher in her home country to coaching in a tiny but fashionable princess filled with millionaires of Monaco. It was a completely strategic move, but hardly even Charlene herself expected what kind of “fish” she would be able to reach in the main finale of her career. Having moved to Europe, a young woman visited competitions in Turin, where she met her casual acquaintance in sporting years - Prince of Monaco Albert II, and this time the meeting had quite matrimonial consequences.
However, these consequences did not come immediately. The first years of the relationship Charlene and Albert were not too advertised, but in 2011-m the prince came along with 33-year-old former swimmer to the official wedding ceremony of the British prince William and Kate Middleton. After that, it remained only to officially announce the engagement, which was done literally a couple of months later.
Contrary to the customs of the ruling houses, the couple did not pull on the wedding: the young one was already not young. Albert II is older than his wife exactly 20 years old, and in the sense of heirs this difference could become critical. The civil ceremony took place 1 July, a month after the engagement, and the wedding - 2 July 2011 year. To the altar, the future princess walked in a satin dress from Giorgio Armani with a five-meter train and open shoulders.
Women's magazines excitedly shared the details of making a wedding dress: it was sewn and hand-decorated with 2500 watches, 90 of thousands of small details - Swarovski crystals, semi-precious stones and mother-of-pearl sequins - made the decor. There were no jewels on Charlene, with the exception of a diamond agraph in her hair (he was lent to the bride by the future sister-in-law, Princess Caroline) and a wedding ring. For the wedding, the French fashion house Hermès, which has long-standing and strong ties with the princely house of Monaco, issued a special shawl depicting a couple of leopards in love: it was not sold, but presented to guests and friends at home.
Three years after the wedding, the princely couple, Grimaldi, were born with twins - Jacques Honore Rainier and Gabriella Teresa Maria. The next prince, judging by the legal order of succession in the principality, will be Jacques Honore Renier, who is content with the title of Marquis de Beaux: not so bad if you are only three and a half years old.
Sophia Helquist
The wife of the Swedish crown prince Karl Phillip, Princess Sofia, Duchess of Värmlands, is known to future citizens with a slightly more intimate side than in royal houses: Sofia, who was then the maiden name Helquist, was a model in lingerie advertising and the men's magazine Slitz. Not only that: the future monarch participated in the reality show Paradise Hotel, in which players fought for the right to stay in an expensive hotel, changing their neighbors by number each night. The most piquant photo from the show's advertising captured naked Sofia, covered in the most seductive places with a giant boa.
Acquaintance of Sofia and Karl Philip also passed without unnecessary ceremonies - at a party in a nightclub. Evil tabloid tongues said that a lover of large reptiles herself entered in their style: she cunningly hunted down and swallowed the defenseless prince only six years older than her. Whether it was so or not, it is not known - in any case, the victim was quite pleased and made a marriage proposal, but not immediately, but well - for five whole years - before thinking about it.
To the altar, Sofia quite patriotically went to the dress of the Swedish brand Ida Sjöstedt (sewn, however, from silk and lace of the Spanish brand José María Ruiz, specializing in expensive fabrics). The tiara of the bride, presented to her by the bridegroom's crowned parents, differed from the usual bridal tiaras: as a rule, they are made of colorless diamonds, sometimes white pearls are added to them (such as, for example, on the wedding tiara of Princess Diana). Sophia got a tiara, reworked from Queen Silvia's necklace of diamonds and emeralds (in turn, Sylvia received jewelry as a diplomatic gift from the King of Thailand).
To allow the nation to forget about its frivolous past, Princess Sophia is engaged in charity, helps African children and brings up her own: Duke of Sodermanland Alexander Eric Hubertus Bertil and Duke of Dalarni Gabriel Karl Walter. Despite the abundance of names, there are only two boys so far. But, perhaps, over time will be more.
Mable wisse smith
The marriage history of entrepreneur Mabel Wisse-Smith and Prince Johan Frizo (second son of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Count of Orange-Nassau) can be compared with the tale of Cinderella - but with a criminal aftertaste and a sad ending. It started as romantic as everyone else did: 30 June 2003, Frizo, a fairly successful banker, announced an engagement with his chosen one (by then both the bride and the groom are peers, which in itself is an infrequent phenomenon in status marriages, - already approached the 35 anniversary).
But here, in a literal sense, the democratic forces intervened: the government of the Netherlands headed by Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, who, according to Dutch law, has the right and the obligation to request permission from the local parliament for a marriage union, flatly refused to do so. Unfortunately for everyone, Mabel was young when she was young (and the tabloids even insist that she was romantically involved) with a drug dealer killed in 1991, and drug trafficker Klaas Brainsma.
To Johan Frizo's credit, this calm and respectable banker proved to be a knight and defended the honor of his chosen one and his right to marriage for love and his own choice, although he gave up the rights to the throne and the title of "Prince of the Netherlands". Less than a year after the government demarche, he married Mabel. The bride was very sweet in a playful ecru wedding dress with a long train dotted with many small and large bows: Mabel patriotically chose the outfit of the Dutch fashion brand Victor & Rolf. The civil marriage ceremony took place in the building of the town hall of the ancient city of Delft, from where the spouses left as Count and Countess of Orange-Nassau, while the prince retained the title of Prince - but also only of Orange-Nassau.
Unfortunately, Frizo did not long have to grieve over the lost succession to the throne (if he was sad about it at all): ten years later he died from the effects of the injury he received at the ski resort after falling under an avalanche. Widow Mabel was left with two daughters - Luana Emma and Yohanna Zaria. Both of them are highborn ladies and countesss, even though they are teenagers. And since there are still enough princes in Europe, it is quite possible that they will eventually become princesses.
Mette-Marrit Thiessem Heybie
The story of the wedding of Mette-Marrit, the Norwegian crown princess (the most real one, because in Norway the government is not so stern with commoners-brides porphyry individuals) is even more dramatic than the marriage adventures of Mabel Wisse-Smith, but at the end fairy tales happy: everyone is alive, and the husband of Mette-Marrit, the crown prince of Norway Haakon, has every chance of becoming a king over time.
But the prerequisites were not the best: the daughter of a journalist (very old at the time of the birth of her daughter) and the bank worker Mette-Marrit in her youth did not get along with her parents, left home, worked as a waitress and (either actually, or according to speculation of tabloids ) took drugs.
She met a man convicted of drug trafficking, from whom Marius Borg's son Heibi was born (the boy is now fully adult, 21 is his year, and his mother jealously guards his privacy from the omnipresent paparazzi who have been interested in him since Mette-Marrit engagement to the prince ).
The yellow press did not stand on ceremony with the very future princess, calling her "royal highness the Mother the Single." All these perturbations did not prevent Haakon from fulfilling his promise and marrying Mette-Marrit. The future queen showed her worthy monarchy character already before the wedding: she wore a dress not from some fashionable fashion house like Givenchy or Chanel, but a relatively little-known local brand Ove Harder Finseth outside Norway (by the way, with a six-meter veil), but led to the altar not the father, the differences with which, obviously, were not resolved, but the future husband.
The couple had two children in common: Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus. The laws in Norway are very feminist, and Princess Ingrid Alexandra became the second in the line of succession after her father, and her younger brother followed in this line for her. Their mother, Mette-Marrit, despite her dubious past, is engaged in charity (in particular, she is a representative of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV in Norway) and is loved by her subjects.
Mary Donaldson
Danish crown prince Frederick traveled to Australia in 2000 without any matrimonial plans. On the contrary: sports mode objects to romantic excesses, and the prince was an athlete, a member of the Danish sailing team at the Sydney Olympics. But who does not happen: the princes sometimes want a cool beer. Frederick went to the pub at the hotel, where for a mug or two he spent time in pleasant conversation with an interesting brunette, director of sales at a real estate agency, professorial daughter Mary Donaldson.
Mary also liked a new acquaintance - a sports guy named Fred: the prince was not in a hurry to show off his royal roots. But when they started dating, he admitted. The love story did not develop too quickly: nevertheless, novels between foreigners, especially from different continents, are not easy even logistically, and if young people have not only the ocean, but also class distinctions, then everything becomes more complicated. However, apparently, Fred was persistent, and Mary first moved to Paris, and then moved to her fiance in Copenhagen.
Queen of Denmark Margrethe II gave her son permission to marry an Australian in 2003, they married in 2004 (for this Mary had to accept Lutheranism). According to the patriotic tradition, the bride wore a dress by a Danish designer to the church - a discreet but elegant outfit made of ecru color satin made by Uffe Frank, who had worked at the beginning of her career with Giorgio Armani. It was complemented by the old veil of Princess Margaret of Connaught, sewn for her wedding at the beginning of the last century. The journalists spread a touching detail: the future crown of the princess asked to sew the wedding ring of her deceased mother into the lining of the dress at the heart level. And her father, dressed in a Scottish kilt, accompanied the bride to the altar: the ancestors of the professor were from Scotland.
Princess Mary (she also received the title of Countess of Monpez) bore a spouse of four children: Prince Christian Valdemar Henry John, Princess Isabel Henrietta Ingrid Margrethe and younger twins - Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine. In addition to parenting, Mary does charity work, supports Danish healthcare and the fashion industry.
