House of Grimaldi

 

There was a time when Monaco was little more than an unwelcoming rocky peninsula, but today it is a thriving principality thanks to the ancient sovereign House of Grimaldi. Monte Carlo, the main city of Monaco, is today best known for the chink of the chips on the gambling tables and the beautiful women basking on its sun-kissed beaches. Much of Monaco’s current popularity is due to the marriage of its ruler, Prince Rainier, to the beautiful Hollywood actress Grace Kelly. A fairytale wedding, a beautiful castle, and three children – and yet the House of Grimaldi had its fair share of scandal.

 

grace kelly and the prince

 

Grace Kelly was born on 12 November 1929 into the family of a self-made millionaire, so money was never a problem throughout her life. She attended a Catholic school, but against her parent’s wishes pursued a career in acting. She graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and quickly received not only television parts but offers from Hollywood. Her first movie was Fourteen Hours (1951), where she played only a minor role, but her first major picture came the following year with High Noon, in which she played the young bride of a sheriff played by Gary Cooper. After that the offers flooded in, and in 1954 she appeared in an incredible five films, taking the leading role in each one. This was to be the year that changed Grace Kelly’s life completely. She won Best Actress Award for her part in The Country Girl and after attending the Oscars in Hollywood, flew to the south of France to attend the Cannes film festival.

Grace met the wealthiest bachelor in the world, Prince Rainier, at the Cannes film festival in May 1955, when she was asked to be photographed next to him for the magazine Paris Match. She was 26 years old and he was just coming up to his 32nd birthday. After the photo shoot, the prince invited Grace back to his gardens and the first sparks of a romance were kindled. By December that year, their engagement was announced with a wedding scheduled for April 1956. However, before the wedding could go ahead the prince made several harsh demands. He wanted a substantial dowry from the Kelly family, and after much haggling they finally agreed to pay $2,000,000. Grace was also required to take a fertility test; Rainier’s previous girlfriend had proved to be infertile and he subsequently broke off the engagement. Grace also had to give up her career in films and finally had to sign an agreement to relinquish any rights to their children should the relationship end in divorce.

Grace’s last film was a remake of the 1940s The Philadelphia Story and having tied up any loose ends in the United States, she set sail for France to join her fiance. Their engagement had already caused a lot of interest in the media and Monaco was buzzing, waiting to catch sight of their new princess. Grace, her family and 50 of her friends arrived on 4 April 1956 on board the USS Constitution. The prince’s yacht sailed out of the harbour to pick them up and take them back to the beautiful, pink, 235-roomed palace high on the hills of Monaco overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

The first part of the wedding ceremony took place on 18 April in the throne room of the palace. It was a civil ceremony, which was required by Monegasque law. The religious ceremony took place the following day in St Nicholas Church. Because Grace had been forced to break her seven-year contract with MGM studios, they were given the rights to film the wedding, which was to be later released as a movie. The wedding was a stunning spectacle with Grace looking every part the princess. Guests at the wedding included Cary Grant, Aga Khan, Gloria Swanson, David Niven, Aristotle Onassis, Ava Gardner and several heads of state and diplomats.

Officially now Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco, Grace and her new husband sailed off in his luxurious yacht the Deo Juvante II with stops in Villegranche, Spain and Corsica. On arriving back from the honeymoon, Grace found out that she was pregnant and although she struggled with her new lifestyle for a while, she threw herself into renovating the palace and creating a brand new nursery. Princess Caroline was born on 23 January 1957 and the prince and his subjects were delighted to have an heir to secure their principality. Prince Albert was born a year later on 14 March and Princess Stephanie seven years later on 1 February 1965. Grace was a devoted mother and an exceedingly popular princess, but like most families the raising of children proved to be quite traumatic on more than one occasion.

 

princess caroline

 

Princess Caroline was the golden child who wanted for nothing. She was beautiful and the press followed her wherever she went. This unfortunately caused a scandal when she was 21 years old, as she was pictured topless at the Monte Carlo Beach Club, which was the place where the rich and famous loved to hang out. The prince and princess were seething and tried to confine their daughter to the palace grounds by cutting off her allowance, but she was a wilful young woman who was not about to be tamed.

Before the incident at the beach club, Caroline had started an affair with an infamous French playboy by the name of Philippe Junot against her parent’s wishes. Although they did their best to keep the couple apart, Caroline was defiant and, because she had already reached the age of consent, agreed to marry Junot.

While Princess Caroline prepared to marry Junot, who was 17 years her senior, on 28 June 1978, reporters from all over the world tried to think of ways of trying to break the security surrounding the wedding. The prince was making every endeavour to keep the affair totally private but it was becoming more and more difficult. Because Monaco was such a small principality, everything that happened to the royal family was headline news, and the media didn’t want to miss out on such a prestigious story. Right up to the end the prince was hoping that his daughter would change her mind, but Caroline was adamant that the wedding was to go ahead and admitted afterwards that she had gone through with it ‘to spite mama’.

The marriage was a disaster and only lasted for 831 days. No sooner had the couple returned from their honeymoon, than Caroline found out that her rake of a husband had made approaches to some of the seedier tabloids to sell some nude photographs he had taken of his wife on honeymoon. The divorce was a long and painful affair, with Caroline applying to the Catholic church for a Papal annulment. This was not granted until 12 years later.

Hardly over the traumas of her marriage break-up, Caroline was forced to overcome an even greater tragedy when her mother was killed in a tragic car crash on 13 December 1982. Grace was driving with her daughter Stephanie, when their car careened off the winding roads of France leading to Monaco. Although Stephanie was able to get out of the car once it had stopped rolling, her mother wasn’t so lucky. Apparently, Grace had suffered a minor stroke, which had caused her to lose control of the vehicle, and the following day she was pronounced dead. Caroline suddenly stepped into her mother’s shoes and blossomed into the principality’s new first lady. She took on a number of high-profile roles and fulfilled each new role with a sense of duty, a side not previously seen in her character.

On 29 December 1983, Caroline found love again and married 23-year-old Italian Stefano Casiraghi, the son of a wealthy businessman. The wedding, compared to her first one to Junot, was a low-key civil ceremony, possibly due to the fact that Caroline was already pregnant with their first son Andrea Albert Pierre, who was born on 8 June 1984. In 1986 Charlotte Marie Pomeline was born and one year later, Pierre Rainier Stefano.

Despite outward appearances, friends of Caroline’s say that it was not a happy union. Casiraghi continued to have an affair throughout their marriage with the daughter of a famous European aristocrat. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he accrued massive debts and Caroline was forced to put up a considerable amount of her late mother’s jewellery to try and stop the banks from foreclosing on her husband’s business. Then tragedy struck again when Caroline’s husband was killed in a speedboat racing accident.

Caroline retreated from public life with her three children and took to wearing black all the time. She lost a considerable amount of weight and rumours were going round that she was suffering from an eating disorder. Two years later Caroline was back in with Vincent Lindon, a French actor and the son of a rich industrialist. The relationship lasted for five years, but the couple never married.

In 1999 Caroline was hitting the headlines once again with a very controversial romance with Prince Ernst August of Hanover. He was a direct descendant of King George III and already married with two children. Gossip spread fast that they were having a secret relationship, which was confirmed when the prince divorced his wife of 16 years and became Caroline’s constant companion.

The couple married on Caroline’s 42nd birthday in a quiet civil ceremony, which gave her the title of Princess of Hanover. The couple have since had a child, Alexandra, and Caroline now concentrates mainly on charity work and has won herself a lot of respect in her home of Monaco.

 

princess stephanie

 

Stephanie, the youngest of the Rainier children, was a headache to her parents and rocked her family with scandals. She was beautiful and sensuous and bickered constantly with her older sister. Perhaps one of the more resourceful of the Rainier children, Stephanie managed to bounce back after each new escapade. Even from an early age she showed signs of some of the traits that have secured her reputation today.

Stephanie finished high school in 1982, but was not interested in going on to higher education. She had a flair for design and became an intern in the Dior house of fashion. However, the fatal accident in September 1982 that killed her mother temporarily put a stop to her career. There were rumours that Stephanie was actually driving the car, but that has never been proved and she is the only person who has a clear idea of what actually happened that day. However, she has continued to remain silent on the subject, leaving the cause of the accident a complete mystery. Affected badly by the trauma of her mother’s death, Stephanie has had a very turbulent private life. She tried her hand at fashion designing, modelling, being a recording artist and even owning her own business. Her boyfriends have included a racing car driver, Hollywood actors, businessmen and many others, and yet it was her relationship with her own bodyguard, Daniel Ducruet, that caused the worst scandal. Prince Rainier became concerned when photographs were released of Stephanie lying around a pool naked, with none other than her bodyguard. Ducruet, 33, was a former Monaco policeman who was obviously doing far more than just protecting Princess Stephanie.

In 1991 Stephanie fell pregnant and Ducruet immediately dumped his girlfriend, Martine Malbouvier, who had a four-month-old son by the bodyguard. Prince Rainier was heartbroken and said to a friend, ‘How could Stephanie do this to me? I have forgiven her for much of her wild behaviour, but this is too much.’ He disowned his grandchildren, Louis, who was born on 26 November 1992 and a little girl, Pauline Grace born on 4 May 1994.

Stephanie eventually convinced her father to allow her to marry Ducruet, but before the ceremony on 1 July 1995 in Monaco, he was made to sign a prenuptual agreement that stripped him of custody rights to any of his children. A very wise move as just a couple of month’s after the couple’s first anniversary, Ducruet was caught on camera cavorting around a pool with Muriel Houteman, the reigning ‘Miss Topless Belgium’. The short-lived marriage was over. Ducruet was immediately banished from the Court of Monaco and forbidden from seeing his children. Ducruet was later awarded £20,000 in damages after he made allegations that it had all been a trap designed to disgrace him.

After her quickie divorce was granted, Stephanie embarked on a string of brief affairs which included the footballer Fabien Barthez and screen heartthrob, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Then the newspapers got hold of another story – that Stephanie was romantically linked with yet another of her bodyguards, a former Paris policeman Jean Raymond Gottlieb. Just a few months into the affair, Stephanie was pregnant again and gave birth to her third child, Camille Marie Kelly, who was born on 15 July 1998. Although it is believed that Gottlieb is the father, Stephanie refused to have the father’s name put on the birth certificate and so this has never been confirmed.

Prince Rainier had simply had enough of his daughter’s unbefitting behaviour and ordered her to leave Monaco. She went to Auron, the ski resort, where she had an affair with a barman, Pierre Pinelli, and was even photographed waiting on tables at his restaurant. However, the affair was short-lived.

Stephanie’s predilection towards low-life friends put her life in danger. For years she had associated with a crowd that both bought and used large amounts of coccaine. When she was approached by the police, she made a deal with them that she would be immune from prosecution in return for supplying them with information. One of her associates was linked to the cartels of Colombia and subsequently the Sicilian Mafia, which made Stephanie a target after she turned in a ruthless drug runner by the name of Giovanni Felice and 12 other known dealers. Prince Rainier, forgetting his past differences with his daughter, immediately stepped in and gave her a safe refuge. She was placed in a luxury penthouse in Monaco with armed bodyguards 24 hours a day. Although she did receive several threatening phone calls, one of which said that her young son was a target, the threats were thankfully never carried out. In August 2000 a cocaine dealer Eskander Laribi was shot dead outside a Nice post office. His girlfriend arrived at the scene driving a car that belonged to the princess, but because of her diplomatic immunity Stephanie was prevented from standing as a witness in the subsequent trial.

After Stephanie’s life of living on the edge, she embarked on one that was totally bizarre. In 2000 she had a romance with a leading Swiss circus owner and elephant trainer called Franco Knie. The affair became public in 2001 when Knie announced that he was leaving his wife for the princess. Stephanie spent several months touring with the circus, living in Knie’s caravan together with her children. However, the affair ended abruptly in 2002 when it was reported that Stephanie was having an affair with her father’s butler, Richard Lucas, who was also married with two children. In 2003 it was rumoured that she was having a fling with the palace’s head gardener and also her sister’s ex-husband Philippe Junot.

Stephanie married a Portuguese trapeze artist on 12 September 2003, ten years her junior and a member of the Circus Knie. This marriage ended in divorce on 24 November 2004, and Hello! magazine published photos of her with a new man, married croupier Franck Brasseur. Since then she has been linked with several other men, including her current boyfriend, French actor and musician Merwan Rim.

Prince Rainier died on 6 April 2005 of heart, lung and kidney failure. Since his death Stephanie has settled down considerably and has become involved in the fight against AIDS.

Prince Albert, as the sole male in the line, is left as heir and successor. Albert, a dedicated sportsman, formed the Monaco national bobsled team in 1986 and competed in five Olympic games. Albert never married and is still considered today to be one of the world’s most eligible bachelors.

However, Albert’s slate is not entirely clean as just one month after taking over as sovereign of Monaco, he announced that he was the father of a two-year-old boy born to an air stewardess by the name of Nicole Coste. Apparently he had met Nicole on an Air France flight in 1997. The following year, Albert also admitted he had a daughter, who was the result of a romantic tryst with an American waitress by the name of Tamara Rotolo. Unfortunately, neither child is in line for the throne, as the principality’s constitution states that only direct and legitimate descendants are considered to be rightful and legal heirs.