Princess Stéphanie of Monaco’s daughter has opened up about her unconventional childhood living in a caravan with a travelling circus after her mother eloped with an elephant trainer.
Pauline Grace Ducruet, 27, who is the 16th in line to the Monaco throne, is the daughter of Stéphanie and her ex-bodyguard Daniel Ducruet, and is the granddaughter of film star, Grace Kelly.
Prince Albert’s niece, who has recently launched her own fashion brand, spent years living in a caravan in a travelling circus after her mum famously eloped with an elephant trainer before returning to Monaco.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, she said that while her childhood may have been ‘random’, living and travelling with children from across the globe was a ‘moment of pure freedom’.
Princess Stéphanie of Monaco’s daughter Pauline Grace Ducruet (pictured in Monte Carlo last year) has opened up about her unconventional childhood living in a caravan with a travelling circus after her mother eloped with an elephant trainer
Pauline spent years living in a caravan in a travelling circus after her mum famously eloped with an elephant trainer before returning to Monaco. She is pictured with Stephanie of Monaco at the 44th International Circus Festival in 2020
‘That was random’, she said. ‘But it was interesting and I was outside with animals all the time. I was with kids from all around the world – German, English, Italian, Spanish – and we had our own little language. It was a moment of pure freedom that I don’t think a lot of kids get to have.’
The youngest child of Rainier III and 1950s acting icon Grace Kelly, Stéphanie was dubbed the wild child of the family, known for her series of scandalous romances.
Her mother died in September 1982 after driving around a hairpin curve in Monaco and crashing, with her 17-year-old daughter Stephanie in the vehicle.
Princess Stephanie, now 56, suffered greatly after the incident, and was hounded over false reports which suggested she had been behind the wheel at the time of the crash.
Pauline is the 16th in line to the Monaco throne and the daughter of Stéphanie and her former bodyguard Daniel Ducruet (pictured with Stephanie in 1996)
Princess Stephanie of Monaco’s daughter is pictured being held by an elephant during a show from the Swiss national circus Knie in Geneva in 2001
In 1991, she became involved with her ex-bodyguard Daniel Ducruet, and the pair had two children – Louis and Pauline – before marrying in 1995.
A year after walking down the aisle, the marriage was left in tatters when Stephanie’s husband was caught cavorting with a woman who had previously won the title, Miss Topless Belgium.
However, Pauline insisted that the pair remained close throughout her childhood, always making ‘a point for us to grow up with two parents’.
In 1998, Stephanie welcomed a daughter, Camille, but controversy surrounded her birth after the princess failed to disclose who the father was.
As such, Camille is not included in the line to the Monegasque throne, unlike her brother Louis Robert and her sister Pauline.
Camille herself has identified former palace security guard Jean Raymond Gottlieb, who is understood to have been head of Stephanie’s security detail when they started a relationship, as her father in a gushing birthday post shared on Instagram in 2017.
In 1998, Stephanie welcomed a daughter, Camille, but controversy surrounded her birth after the princess failed to disclose who the father was. Pauline, Camille and Stephanie are pictured during Paris Fashion Week last year
Although Camille shares Gottlieb’s surname, his name is not on her birth certificate and Stephanie has never publicly confirmed that he is Camille’s father.
In 2001, Pauline’s mother left Monaco with her three children to pursue a relationship with an animal handler in a Swiss travelling circus.
The relationship came to an abrupt end and, two years later, she wed a Portuguese circus acrobat Adans Lopez Peres – a marriage which also ultimately ended in divorce less than a year later.
Upon their return to Monte Carlo, Pauline decided to embark on a career as an acrobat herself, graduating into diving and taking part in the World Junior Diving Championships and the Summer Youth Olympics.
At 18, she left the family home to to study fashion styling at the Istituto Marangoni in Paris before Parsons School of Design in New York.
Pauline, whose mother Stéphanie modelled for Dior, underwent internships at American Vogue and Louis Vuitton before eventually launching her own label, Alter, which has recently released their second collection.