Princess Stephanie of Monaco

Princess Stéphanie of Monaco, Stéphanie Marie Elizabeth Grimaldi, was born on February 1, 1965 in Monaco. At the age of 17 she was a passenger in the car at the time of the accident that killed her mother, Grace Kelly on September 13, 1982. At the time there were rumours that Stephanie was driving the car.

She has had a turbulent life. In 1991 she became pregnant by her bodyguard, Daniel Ducruet. She gave birth to Louis in 1992 and Pauline in 1994. She married Ducruet in 1995 but divorced him in 1996 after the press arranged to have him photographed having sex with "Miss Topless Belgium". Stéphanie had another child, Camille, in 1998, whom the palace has confirmed was fathered by Jean Raymond Gottlieb, another royal bodyguard..

Even though they were born out of wedlock, Louis and Pauline Ducruet are in line to the throne of Monaco because they were legitimated after their mother's marriage with Daniel Ducruet and Monegasque law recognises such children as dynastic. Camille is not in line of succession, until and unless Stéphanie marries her father or she is legitimated by legislation.

Stéphanie briefly made headlines in 2002 when she lived with married elephant tamer Franco Knie.

On 12 September 2003, in Geneva, she married Adans Lopez Peres, an award-winning Portuguese circus acrobat 10 years her junior. He is a fifth-generation circus performer who is the eldest son of an acrobat-clown and a mother who is a classically trained flamenco dancer. Lopez Peres is one half of the Peres Brothers, a circus act with his younger brother, Ivan. The news of the marriage was announced simultaneously with news of the bride's current pregnancy.