Relationships between members of the Princely Family

[michelle]

Hi again...

...about Caro and Steph...and their relationship:

They might have had some fights and arguments...and certainly they have some kind of different ways of living....but still they're sisters who respect each other and love each other a lot.

Stephanie said about it :

"I don't see her very often. She has her life and I've mine. We have both made our choices. We have both made our way. That's a bit sad sometimes because I often need her a lot. Maybe there have been moments in her life when she needed me too...but we have two very different chareacters...two very different lifestyles.
If tomorrow something happens to her...she's my blood, my sister..I'd do no matter what for her. "

Princess Stephanie of Monaco
Paris Match / October 2000


...and so feels Caroline about it. She said she goes very much along with what her sister said.
Their relationship is not too bad at all!

Some photos of the two sisters are following....


Michelle


Steph and Caro on holiday

sitting on their sunchairs...talking while Pierre and Louis play in the sand

Louis' waiting for auntie Caro to play with him....Pierre plays with Pauline

Caro & Steph

with Albert and daddy

chattin'

Caro's telling jokes....

Why so serious, ladies???

havin' fun on xmas

all together...

 

[michelle]

still young...

Steph and her sis with Paul Belmondo 1981

 

[Alexandria]

Caroline And Stephanie's Relationship

I was just watching Entertainment Tonight and they said there would be a story on Princesses Caroline and Stephanie's strained relationship in the October 2003 issue of Vanity Fair ... with someone close to my heart on the cover!

Among the highlights were:

* Caroline secretly (not so secretly?) blames Stephanie for their mother's death because Stephanie and Grace were fighting at the time and/or Stephanie was driving - which she denies

* Stephanie dates whomever she wants, including the help, without consequence

... Vanity Fair seems to be on a royal roll lately!

 

[Alexandria]

Oops! Forgot to add that the issue goes on sale next Tuesday in North America. Not sure about the rest of the world.

 

[Julia]

I'll be one of the first people to snap up VF at the stands next Tuesday! Thanks, Alexandria! Oh, and Mr. Clooney looks mah-velous on the cover!

 

[paulette]

I watched Entertainment Tonight just a few hours ago and I did see a report about Princess Caroline and Stephanie's strained relationship. Princess Caroline's still believes that it was Stephanie who was driving on the wheels during the time of the accident. It was also reported there that during that time Princess Grace and Stephanie were having an argument.

Prince Rainer's 5 billion fortune is to be divided among his children and instead of Stephanie receiving a large amount, she will only receive 25 million.

 

[michelle]

Sorry, but this is complete ... garbage ...where do they think they know this from....
About Steph's money....who knows...nobody will ever..it's not even interesting....she'll always have enough...
As for Caroline believing that steph was driving: That's the most horrible lie I ever heard. Caro and Steph are not always getting along like sitewrs should, but they love and respect esch other...how could Caro ever be able to breath if she'd believe this garbage....


Michelle

 

[thissal]

Whatever, losing a mother at age 17 is one of the worse ages I think to have that happen. It often leaves long-time scars.

 

[Jade70]

I agree with you all!!!!!

 

[Julia]

I agree with galisteo's statement. The press gets bored and embellishes upon the few negatives in the relationship between Caroline and Stephanie to keep people interested. It's shameless but as galisteo has said Caroline and Stephanie has never give interviews! I think now would be a good time for them to "clear" the air.

 

[Alexandria]

Originally posted by Julia@Sep 4th, 2003 - 10:58 pm
I agree with galisteo's statement. The press gets bored and embellishes upon the few negatives in the relationship between Caroline and Stephanie to keep people interested. It's shameless but as galisteo has said Caroline and Stephanie has never give interviews! I think now would be a good time for them to "clear" the air.

Hi everybody!

I was unaware that neither Stephanie and Caroline have ever given public interviews. For example, the Harper's Bazarr issue with Caroline on the cover that Julia uses as her avatar, I thought I remembered there being an interview with Caroline in it? There was definitely text along with the beautiful pictures of the Princess.

As much as I would love to hear either or both Caroline and Stephanie's thoughts and feelings or perceptions about the events in their lives, I think there is something to be said for staying silent. Let the press write what they will, true, false, extreme exageration, whatever, but as long as Ranier, Albert, Caroline, Stephanie and their children know the truth, then that's all that matters.

I think about Jackie Kennedy who never gave a public interview following the president's assasination. When she made public appearances or spoke in public they were always for causes she believed in and that said ten times more about the kind of person she was and the kind of life she wanted to live than anything she could've said or revealed in one sensational interview. And even if she did give an interview (or lots of them) statements would've been embellished and exaggerated and misinterpreted anyways. You can't win!

 

[Alexandria]

www.nypost.com/gossip/cindy.htm - It's Cindy Adams, the gossip columnist from the New York Post, so take it with a grain of salt ...

A WAR's under way in downtown Monaco's toy palace. Princess Caroline, 46, talked of as being "tough," and Princess Stephanie, 37, who is always talked of as being "a tough case," are killing one another. Steph wanted to schlep her newest lover, her father's gray-haired butler, Richard Lucas - also married with two kids - to a family gala and, as I reported then, Steph subsequently didn't show. Vanity Fair's new issue explains why in its juicy piece beating up the sisters. "Princesses Behaving Badly" says chain-smoking Caroline, whose own third husband is a bit boozy, barred her. And they're now calling one another names. Steph says Caroline's jealous of her. Caroline says Steph's taking the family down market. Makes those Brit royals really look regal.

 

[Julia]

Hi Alexandria.

There was somekind of banal interview in the October 96' Harper's Baazar issue w/ Caroline on the cover. I vaguely remember it and I wish I could get my hands on a copy. It mostly discussed Caroline's style, the late Pss Grace, her kiddos and there might have been a sentence or two on Stefano. It was mostly what we already knew and know.

When was it that Pss Caro sat down with Barbara Walters (or was it Diane Sawyer?)? I never saw that interview and would love to know what was said.

I guess what it boils down to is what the sisters real feelings are with regards to one another which I guess we might not ever know! Having said that, I must say that all of this talk from gossip columnists cannot be complete lies. I can believe that Caroline would not approve of Stephanie's lifestyle and vice-versa. What sisters don't argue and disapprove of one another's lifestyles and actions?

 

[Alexandria]

QUOTED FROM JULIA: There was somekind of banal interview in the October 96' Harper's Baazar issue w/ Caroline on the cover. I vaguely remember it and I wish I could get my hands on a copy.

... I am in the process of cleaning out my magazines. I remember this issue and it is in my royalty collection because there were also photos of Princess Diana in it. I will find it and have a re-read.

QUOTED FROM JULIA: When was it that Pss Caro sat down with Barbara Walters (or was it Diane Sawyer?)? I never saw that interview and would love to know what was said.

... Yes! I had completely forgotten about this interview. It was Diane Sawyer for Primetime Live. I distinctly remember Diane descending the grand palace steps with Caroline, who had lost her hair at the time, so her head was wrapped in a beautiful head scarf. I wonder if you can buy this tape from ABC? Will have a look into it. It would be a good investment, n'est pas?

 

[Julia]

Oui! It would be a very good investment. I'll check into it as well. Also, I will be on tender hooks until you find that Oct 96' mag!

 

[paulette]

It is so sad to hear that what the media is saying to the public are deceptive. Well that's the world now full with people whose mission is just to destroy lives especially relationships.

I just admire how the family handles this kind of rumors if its really a sham. I understand Princess Caroline and Stephanie not talking about this issue for they know its untrue and its up to them to heal their strained relationship if ever there is. It's not just the people worldwide who were mourning over the death of Princess Grace so much more the family members. What happened was an accident and we can't avoid it to happen for we only can prevent it.

Well whatever things had happened in the past then it should not be a barrier for the two princesses to be more close. There's a saying that says "Let the bygones be bygones forever." Life should go on and they should remain intact to the ground..

 

[Alexandria]

Originally posted by Julia@Sep 5th, 2003 - 12:28 am
Oui! It would be a very good investment. I'll check into it as well. Also, I will be on tender hooks until you find that Oct 96' mag!

Oh Julia! Even though it was late, I couldn't stop thinking about that magazine and went to have a look for it and it turns out I dont have it in the pile I thought it was in, so now I don't know where it is.

 

[Alexandria]

Wow! You have such a good memory galisteo! All I remember from that interview - now 6 years ago! - was watching Diane Sawyer descend the palace stairs in the intro! I sure hope you can find that tape and fill us all in on more great details from the interview.

 

[Alexandria]

I just got the Vanity Fair with the "Princesses Behaving Badly" story. Lots of pictures - about 6 in all - of Caroline and Stephanie with Grace, Ranier, Albert and several of Caroline and Phillippe Junot, Caroline and Ernst, Stephanie and Franco Knie and Stephanie and Richard Lucas, her father's former butler. Have not read the article yet - quite long, about 6 pages - but will try to sneak in some reading while at work. If not, for sure on the train home. So expect a summary from me! (Or someone else if they read it first!)

(And by the way, my George is looking pretty fabulous in this issue ... but I'm sure he would be more fabulous in person! )

 

[Alexandria]

I read half the article on the train coming home from work, very juicy and gossipy, but I'm not sure how credible it is. Has anyone else read it?

I will post tid bits from the article that I found to be most juicy and interesting. It will take me a while though, because although I am a fast typer, I cannot re-type a 5,000+ word article in an evening -- espescially since I find much of it be fascinating!

Stay tuned ...

 

[Alexandria]

Part One ...

Princesses Behaving Badly

Despite her own romantic misadventures and the boozy antics of her third husband, Princess Caroline of Monaco is livid over her sister's string of déclassé liaisons (bodyguards, circus performers, their father's butler). But Stephanie, the Grimaldi's wounded, wild child, shows no sign of being tamed. BY JUDY BACHRACH

... "You have to understand Caroline's point of view: Stephanie exaggerates in her choice of men," the 63-year-old [Philippe] Junot told me a few months after the Red Cross Ball. "It's not a question of snobbism, not at all. Stephanie doesn't have to search where she searches." Not that Junot seems to harbor great fondness for his ex-wife [Princess Caroline]. Her Royal Highness, Junot believes, has grown "tougher" over the years. "But Stephanie is a tough case, too." Although he adds with a shrug, "Stephanie has excuses."

"Caroline's brand of toughness was much in evidence the day of the ball. What would their late mother, the ambitious Princess Grace have said to a liaison with a servant? Caroline had a fair idea. And an ultimatum-which she flung over the lunch table. She had no intention, she told Ranier, of sharing a ballroom with Stephanie, whose romantic selections had in Caroline's view tarnished the principality. (The scene was reported in exquisite detail by Paris Match, a frequent cause of Grimaldi wrath. But a source close to the sisters says, "The magazine is very well informed, I can tell you.")

...Meanwhile, Ranier, a tired widower of 80 in poor health, attempted in vain to reconcile his two difficult daughters. But at the end of the day, it was decided: "le chouchou de la famille," as Stephanie is widely described, would not go to the ball.

...Albert, Stephanie's champion and generally her protector, more somber than usual, refusing for the first time since anyone could remember to open the ball with a dance ...

... "Like Cinderella, banished by the wicked sister" says a longtime observer.

Late that night, I learned from a Riviera source, Stephanie called a friend of his. "En tout cas, my sister has always been jealouse of me," Stephanie whispered into the phone.

...Well, you certainly look far better in photographs than Caroline does," the voice on the other end consoled her.

"Oui!" agreed Stephanie.

"And you're more popular."

"Oui!"Stephanie repeated. Then came the coup de grace. "And I choose better men than she does."

 

[Alexandria]

Part Two ...

...Then-after the palace butler-she landed a palace gardener, a conquest that sent terror through the hearts of "a lot of the wives of handsome male staff working at the palace" according to Paris Match.

Her current companion, the Portuguese acrobat, happens to be an employee of the above-mentioned elephant trainer's. All these selections are most dispiriting to those who know the Grimaldi family. "I don't think it's nice to see the lackey with your daughter after he's been serving the father at the dinner table," says Egon von Furstenberg, a Grimaldi cousin.

In his view, the two sisters, born eight years apart, are irreconcilable in their differences. "Caroline is a real princess," he observes, a woman of restrained and measured tastes. "I'm sure she's very happy wearing a little Laura Ashley dress in Provence." Stephanie, more theatrical, he adds, is a throwback to her irrepressible grandmother Princess Charlotte, a flighty woman who loathed court life and swiftly dumped Ranier's father, Prince Pierre. ("To make love, he needs to put a crown on his head," Charlotte once observed.) "Kind of a bag lady, but fun," recalls von Furstenberg.

These are differences of long standing. Even in late adolescence, Caroline was "more kind of a leftish intellectual French student. The real her was totally different from what she made of her life," her cousin concludes. There is, in other words, some concern that the older princess, albeit in a different way, has made just as much of a muddle of things. Caroline's are simply higher-class muddles.

"Look, if you have a husband who urinates on the Turkish Pavilion in Hanover, who drinks so much alcohol, who beats up a cameraman in Germany, breaking his nose, and a guy in Kenya," says Bebert, neatly encapsulating the activities of the German Ernst August since his marriage to Caroline four years ago, "you have no right to spit on Stephanie." (This will come as news to Prince Ernst. "Acccchh, that Stephanie!" Ernst confided last year to a friend after a few drinks. "She is such an embarrassment.")

 

[Alexandria]

Part Three ...

"Caroline," concludes Bebert, "has always held a grudge against her sister."

"But then Caroline might well feel, why shouldn’t she? Stephanie has caused nothing but trouble ever since she was a spoiled teenager, while she, Caroline, has done everything in her power to uphold the dignity and glamour of her position. "I never chose a single thing in my life," she has said. "I was inculcated with the notion of duty, obedience, and a very strong sense of duty, and all these came before pleasure." And what has she received as her reward? Stephanie on the cover of every damned gossip magazine in France.

...Point de Vue...His one million readers identify more closely with Stephanie, the Monegasque version of Princess Diana, weak and prone to disaster. But Caroline? "I think she has changed. It's hard to explain because of lawsuit reasons, but she has developed a less sympathetic character," says Marescaux (editor of Point de Vue).

The Grimaldis sue him (Point de Vue) "six to seven times a year," he moans, Caroline espescially ... In one year alone ... Caroline collected more than $530,000 from an assortment of publications.

...Indeed given the lengths to which the family goes to stifle information, most of what is published about the Grimaldis in Europe is pap-and Caroline's complaints about her treatment by the press are of dubious validity.

"She has this image of a cold, brutal woman. Therefore less agreeable," concludes the editor. The wicked sister, indeed. And in the opposite corner, Stephanie, who can't seem to do anythign right, who was, perhpas, as people again whispered not long ago, on the 20th anniversary of Princess Grace's fatal car crash, the inadvertent cause of that as well.

For her part, Stephanie is in despair. "I can't stand it anymore!" she declared recently. But none of this pain is new for her. "My whole life," she once said, "has been nothing but tremendous doubt."

 

[Alexandria]

Part Four ...

At 17, Stephanie of Monaco was the most spoiled and willful of all the Grimaldis, as even her doting mother, the former movie star, had to concede. "I should have beat Stephanie like a gong," Grace once remakred ruefully. THe girl was beautiful, a tomboy with an athlete's broad shoulders and androgynous build. "I told Grace, 'She got her genes mixed up, surely!' " an old family friend confides.

An expert at eluding her parents' vigilance, Stephanie was in every way different from the more predicatble Caroline and the sweet-natured Albert.

...The former film star (Grace) found all this enchanting. "You wait," Grace told her dear friend Gwen Robyns, now 86, "Stephanie will be the most interesting of all our fmaily." By which she meant the child had a knack for drama.

"She spoiled her rotten, and Caroline objected to it," Robyns recalls. Robyns herself was considerably less in awe of the girl. THere was, for instance, the episode of The Hamburger, when Stephanie, aged 15, asked her mother what was on the menu for lunchtime. "Scrapple," cooed Grace, who was famously parsimonious and a fan f the homely all-American dish. "I'm not going to eat that!" Stephanie replied, demanding a Big Mac instead. Princess Grace obediently sent the chauffeur to fetch it.

..."Grace gave in to her all the time."

Stephanie, in return, adored her mother and was fiercely possessive. "She was jealous of everyone who came near Grace, and that included her sister, Caroline," says Robyns.

 

[Alexandria]

Part Five ...

... Caroline's dramas [following her disastrous marriage to playboy Junot], however positively paled beside those of Stephanie, as people around Monaco wre discovering. Her school grades were grim, her desires unreined. "Since the age of 14, she'd leave the bathroom naked and then go into the living room, and the boydguards would be very upset by this," reveals Bernard Violet, author of the exquisitely researched La Saga Monaco. "She was unconntrollable."

..."You must remember Stephanie was a very capricious girl, very nervous. So when she wants something, she gets it," says Pastorelli, who, despite Stephanie's denials, is one of those who suspect Grace gave into her daughter's pleas to take the wheel that morning.

...Bencze [the French police captain who was in charge of the investigation] was asked by the Palace to announce that the cause of the accident was brake failure. (He refused.) After this, another Palace pronouncement emerged: the cause of hte accident was actually a stroke suffered by Grace. And finally, because by treaty no member of the Monegasque princely family is obliged to speak to French police, Bencze had to make a formal request to the Palace to interrgate Stephanie in the hospital. The answer that came back-written in the script of somePalace functionary-was Non. Nonetheless, Bencze concluded that Grace drove the car.

But Violet isn't so sure. "This girl for years was jailed inside a secret, which was basically a lie. And that's what she couldn't stand. In my opinion her excesses of today are the result of that. And who shut her up inside this secret, this lie? It was her father! For the honor of Monaco." The writer is convinced of one other thing as well. "If she take sup with bodyguards or maitre d's, it's her way of drving her father nuts."

... Only one thing was certain: Stephanie was overpowered for years after her mother's death by feelings of guilt. "You can't imagine how much I suffered and how much I suffer still," she said a year ago. "I had just lost the central axis of my life. I have an enormous sense of furstration: Why did she die, and not I?"

Did Caroline blame her younger sister for the tragedy? "Frankly, yes," says Pastorelli, the former bodyguard. "Everything changed. Let's just say that, whatever happened, one had the impression that Caroline blamed her sister." Pastorelli happens to admire Caroline's formidable intellect, the cool, insistent measure she takes of those around her, but at the same time he finds these traits disconcerting. "I tell you Caroline is very, very hard. She's a man, makes the decision of a man," he says. "She is-how shall I say? Brutal."

 

[thissal]

Thanks a million for posting all that Alexandria. I'll have to agree that Caroline would have to be brutal to steal her good friend's husband like that. I haven't followed Stephanie's various liasons to know if she did the same, but in my circle, husband stealing is far more trashy than dating an elephant trainer.

 

[Lyonnaise]

I completely agree with Thissal. I'm not sure who this article was supposed to side us against, but I will always like Stephanie a lot more than Caroline. It seems to me that Caroline may not only be upset at Stephanie but also at Albert, who even though is the SECOND child gets to become the hier. It seems (and this is just MY opinion) that Caroline is trying to push her children into the spotlight, getting the order of succession changed so that Andrea would suceed Albert, etc. That's just my opinion. Mind you I'll find any reason not to like her, she seems trop snob for my liking.

 

[Julia]

...leave it to the Grimaldis for great entertainment!

 

[Alexandria]

Part Six ...

..."By the way, she never spoke about the accident," Joanna Greenberg continues. "But you could see she was so wounded, her soul so wounded."

"Hi, Mom!" Stephanie declared in teh midst of an American press interview [to promote her singing career]. This bizarre greeting was accompanied by a brief wave at the sky. About her older sister (who disapproved of her singing career), Stephanie was brevity itself to her American friends. "Strong," was how she characterized Caroline. It was precisely the quality she herself was lacking.

In the fall of 1990, while Stephanie was still in Los Angeles, Stefano Casiraghi died in a speedboat accident ... He was just 30. On receiving the news of her brother-in-law's death, Stephanie became "hysterical," says Joanna Greenberg. "She wasn't over her mother's passing--and now another death."

"Why is this happening to my family?" wondered Stephanie.

The young woman felt her family attracted death. She abandoned the last remnants of her sagging singing career and returned to Monaco, to be by the side of the new widow. "If something happens to her, she is my blood, my sister," Stephanie has said. "I would do anything at all for her."

...But within two years the sisters' newfound closeness began to falter. On May 15, 1992, Stephanie, then 27, proudly announced herself pregnant. Daniel Ducruet, also 27, her handsome one-time bodyguard, had given her "a happiness of such intensity, there are no words to express it."

...a friend of Stephanie's remarks, "she had finally found emotional stability. She was happy at last."

..."Stephanie is really a darling girl. She can do no wrong," Rainer told a friend at a White House dinner.

 

[Alexandria]

The Conclusion ...

...But despite her retreat to Auron, a small nearby ski resort in France, Stephanie wasn't cut out for the mature, reflective life even after har marriage ended. She was found waiting on tables even after her marriage ended. She was found waiting on tables at a local bar run by yet another boyfriend; her name cropped up as a potential witness in teh murder of a drug dealer--at which point Ranier drafted a new will so that the bulk of his estimated $5 billion fortune would go to his elder children; Stephanie's portion was reduced to around $25 million. Meanwhile, she had taken up with a second bodyguard, who is quite possibly the father of her third child, Camille, born in 1998. Not long after she found love with the Swiss elephant trainer and circus owner, Franco Knie, married and father of three.

..."I have loved, but in my position," Stephanie has said, "it's very difficult to know if they loved me for my qaulities, or rather for what I could give them because of what I represented. I have been decieved."

Deceived by everyone, she adds frequently, except her father.

Ever vigilant, Carolie watches her sister's serial roamntic escapades with the moutning alarm of an arriviste. Strictly speaking, the Grimaldis are a "princely" family, one notch below royalty. Moreover, even before her marriage in 1999 to Prince Ernst, heir to one of the oldest and loftiest royal houses in Europe, she had always been more acutely sensitive to her position than to certain awkward details in her family background. For example, her grandmother Princess Charlotte was born illegitimate, the granddaughte rof a washerwoman. But of this ancestry Carolien remains resolutely oblivious. "Don't ever do that again!" Caroline once barked to a friend who had tapped her on the backside. "Never forget who I am!"

On wedding Ernst of Hanover (a married man with two young children at the time their romance began), the pregnant bride acquired a grandeur appropriate to her new station. Stephanie was not present at the ceremony.

Even Rainier is not immune to the imposing social position of his eldest. Last May, Monaco abruptly changed its restrictive succession law, allowing power to pass from a reigning prince without heirs (a situation in which Albert still finds himself) to his siblings and their children. In Monaco, people are saying this legal alteration suits Caroline down to the ground. Her handsom son Andrea Casiraghi, newly graduated from high school, appears on state occasions with Prince Albert, fueling speculation that the young man may soon occupy the throne for which his uncle has little appetite. Young Andrea, however, has been effectively discouraged from hanging out with Stephanie, according to one informed Monaco resident.

Two months ago, attired only in a red ribbon, Stephanie posed for the Spanish magazine Hola! One can well imagine what kind of emotions the display produced in her more regal elder sister. (This despite the sterling nature of Stephanie's motives; the pictures benefitted an AIDS foundation she launched with Prince Albert.) But Stephanie remains ... Well, what can one say? Stephanie.

"I don't feel like reaching the age of 65 and telling myself: "I could have done this or that,'" Stephanie recently said, spinning an unlikely scenario. "If I die tomorrow, I'll have lived as I chose. After everything that's been done to me, that's not too bad."