Marriage(s) and Relationships: Partner: Jean-Raymond Gottlieb Child:Camille Marie Kelly Grimaldi Married to: Daniel Ducruet 1 JUL 1995, MONACO, Ended by: Divorce
Child:Louis Robert Paul Ducruet Child:Pauline Grace Maguy Ducruet Married to: Adans Peres 12 SEP 2003, Geneva, SWITZERLAND, Ended by: Divorce
Child:Notes: Oct. 04, 1996:
PARIS (AP) - Princess Stephanie of Monaco was granted a speedy,
face-saving divorce Friday from her commoner husband whose amorous romps
with other women were caught on camera.
The office of Stephanie's Paris lawyer, Thierry Lacoste, said her divorce
from Daniel Ducruet was decreed by a court in Monaco where her family,
the Grimaldis, has reigned for nearly 700 years.
Stephanie filed for divorce on Sept. 16, weeks after Italian magazines
printed a batch of photos showing Ducruet in a poolside romp with the
reigning Miss Nude Belgium, Fili Houteman.
Ducruet expressed remorse for his affair with the stripper, and even
suggested he may have been framed.
There was a brief effort at reconciliation before the princess entered
divorce proceedings. "I feel a lot of shame. I've betrayed my wife. I've
betrayed her love and above all, I've betrayed my children, who are going
to have to bear the consequences," he was quoted as saying in a September
interview with Britain's Hello! magazine. But on Thursday, Paris Match
published photos of Ducruet and another woman, identified only as
Valerie, a water ski instructor. The photos show them, legs laced
together, laughing and lounging on Stephanie's yacht. The family of the
princess was never keen on the match. But it appears that Ducruet who
once worked as a fishmonger, was adapting to royal life.
Stephanie, 31, and Ducruet, 32, have two children, Louis, 4, and Pauline,
2. Both were born before the couple married July 1, 1995.
The divorce settlement was not made public, according to royal tradition.
But the lawyer's statement noted the couple married under a contract that
allows for the division of material goods, not uncommon in France and
Monaco. A statement by Lacoste said Ducruet would be allowed to visit the
couple's two children every other weekend and half of each vacation
period. The palace said it would not issue a statement.
From Source Hello Magazine: As the youngest child of a luminescent
screen goddess and the sovereign of a glamorous Mediterranean
principality, Stephanie of Monaco seemed to be blessed with all the
makings of a storybook princess. However, as she weathered the tragic
loss of her mother in her teens, struggled to find her career niche and
left behind a series of failed relationships – all the time watched by
the world's media it became clear Stephanie's life was anything but a
fairy tale.
Born on February 1, 1965, Princess Stephanie spent her early years
growing up in the Palais de Monaco, dreaming of studying fashion design.
Then, in 1982, her life suddenly changed when her mother was killed as
the two travelled on a winding mountain road in Monaco. "Not only did I
go through the horrible trauma of losing my mother at a very young age,
but I was beside her at the moment of the accident," she said in 2002,
after a 20-year silence about the tragedy. "Nobody can imagine how much
I've suffered, and still suffer."
And it was in the years following the crash that Stephanie, who these
days sports at least three tattoos, began to earn a reputation as a royal
rebel. "I realised how lucky I was to have life," she said later. "I had
my arms open to the future and I said to myself, 'This could be all over
tomorrow.' Nobody has really tried to understand me or my behaviour,
which just reflected my decision to enjoy life to the full."
For Stephanie, enjoying life "to the full" involved embracing a glamorous
lifestyle and dating a string of high profile men as she tried her hand
at modelling, fashion design and pop singing. "I'm quite happy to perform
my official duties," she said as she launched an eponymous perfume in
1989. "But on the other hand, I've always wanted to be independent and to
have my own career." Acknowledging she had "tried everything", she added:
"I've had an unusual career path for a princess."
And she seemed to approach her love life with the same enthusiasm. By the
time she was in her mid-20s, she had left behind a series of colourful
beaus – including race car driver Paul Belmondo, a twice-divorced disco
owner, a record producer and Hollywood star Rob Lowe – as well as a
broken engagement with a French real estate developer. Then, in 1991, she
courted controversy when she began dating her former bodyguard Daniel
Ducruet, whose ex-girlfriend was six months pregnant with his child.
The romance was not well-received by Prince Rainier, and the rift between
them further deepened in May 1992 when the princess announced she was
expecting. (Baby Louis was born later that year.) However, soon after the
birth of the couple's second child, Pauline, in 1994, father and daughter
were reconciled, and Daniel and Stephanie married the following year.
Thrilled with motherhood – "Being a mother is the only true meaning in my
life. It's everything," she said – Stephanie wasn't so lucky in love.
Eighteen months into their marriage, the couple divorced after Daniel was
photographed in a compromising situation with Miss Nude Belgium.
Three years later, Stephanie's independent streak landed her in the
headlines once again, when she announced she was expecting her third
child out of wedlock. Camille Marie Kelly was brought into the world on
July 15, 1998; the baby's father was a mystery, though reports named him
as bodyguard Jean-Raymond Gottlieb.
Never one for convention, Stephanie surprised few when in 2001, aged 36,
she enjoyed a romantic liaison with married elephant trainer Franco Knie
and moved, along with her three children, into a Swiss caravan to live
the circus life. However, that relationship came to an end in 2002, and
Stephanie and her little ones returned to the Monegasgue fold. She found
love a bit closer to home with her next romance, a short-lived
relationship with palace employee Richard Lucas.
Despite the unusual decisions she's made in her life – she was said to
have been banned from the principality's 2002 traditional Red Cross Ball
due to her relationship with Richard –Stephanie doesn't feel she's the
black sheep of the Grimaldi clan. "I don't see myself as a rebel… but of
course it all depends on what you consider normal," she says. "The most
important thing is to feel happy with what you yourself decided."
So in the end, perhaps Stephanie would not have been satisfied had her
life been nothing but a fairy tale. "Though I may be a princess," she
points out, "above all I'm a human being."
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