Grace Kelly's 'wild child' daughter, Princess Stéphanie of Monaco, once ran away with the circus after falling for an elephant trainer
- Princess Stéphanie of Monaco once ran away with the circus after falling for an elephant trainer.
- Known as the "wild child" of Grace Kelly, the princess's life is explored in a new documentary.
- The film speculates whether her "chaotic" love life is related to the death of her mother.
The youngest daughter of Grace Kelly, the Oscar-winning Hollywood actress who married into Monaco's royal family, once joined the circus after falling in love with a "married Swiss elephant trainer," according to a new documentary.
Princess Stéphanie, one of Kelly and her husband Prince Rainier III of Monaco's three children, had her love life put under the microscope in Channel 5's documentary "The Curse of Grace Kelly's Children," released in the UK in July.
Called the "colorful child" of the House of Grimaldi by the documentary's narrator, Angela Rippon, the princess was only 17 when she and her mother's car plunged off of the side of a 100-foot cliff in Monaco in 1982. Hugo Vickers, a royal biographer interviewed in the documentary said Kelly "may have had a small stroke," which could explain why she suddenly lost control of the car.
Kelly died after the crash, and the documentary explores whether the "chaotic nature" of Stéphanie's later love life is rooted in the trauma.
According to Rippon, "love blossomed" between the princess, who was 36 at the time, and elephant trainer Franco Knie after they met at Monaco's annual International Circus Festival in 1999.
"She literally went off and joined the circus, she and her kids," Bidisha SK Mamata, a British filmmaker and journalist who began covering royals after making several Princess Diana documentaries, said in the film.
Stéphanie moved into Knie's trailer with her three children from previous relationships and traveled around with his circus in Switzerland, according to Mamata.
"Obviously it was not ideal for her children, it was very difficult for them to get educated," Phil Dampier, a royal journalist, said in the film.
However, Mamata told Insider that circus life may have been Stéphanie's way of educating them: "Stéphanie was showing her kids another life is possible and that adventure and romance and following your whims is just as important as knuckling down to whatever the royal family expects you to be."
Her relationship with Knie has never been publicly commented on by her family but in private, according to royal biographer Angela Levin, it was not supported.
Levin went on to say Princess Caroline, who assumed many of her mother's roles and duties after her death, was "devastated by her sister's behavior."
"She felt she was letting the whole family down," Levin added.
In the film, Dampier said the "novelty" of her relationship with Knie eventually wore off. But according to the documentary, she went on to have a relationship with another circus performer, a Portuguese acrobat called Adans Lopez Peres.
A 2003 report in Hello! magazine said she also met Peres at the 2001 annual International Circus Festival in Monaco.
Narrating the documentary, Rippon said that the pair lived together briefly in a caravan before getting married in 2003. In November 2004, they filed for divorce.
Princess Stéphanie, now 56, never remarried. Dampier said in the film that she's reached a stage in her life where she is content dedicating her time to her children and her philanthropic work.
"She's very much involved with charity work and her AIDS charities and animal charities. I think Grace would be pleased that the 'wild child' has finally grown up," he added.