Princess Stéphanie talks about her family: “When something isn’t right, you need to say so”
In a recent interview, Princess Stéphanie talks about the peaceful life she now leads with her family and animals © Communication department / Frédéric Nebinger
In an interview with Gala magazine on Friday 14 February, Princess Stéphanie shared a number of archive photos from her “private album”.
Princess Stéphanie, who celebrated her 60th birthday on 1 February this year, has chosen to keep her private life hidden from the outside world, but made an exception by letting the celebrity magazine see some previously unreleased snapshots. For example, a photo of her in 1980, with her Golden Retriever.
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Photographs of the Princess are kept in the Prince’s Palace archives, a treasure she shares with the public on rare occasions.
According to the celebrity magazine, Princess Stéphanie doesn’t want her past to define her. She acknowledges her mistakes without ever dwelling on them, preferring to move forward: “I look straight ahead. Always,” she said last July. At 60, she says she is relaxed about the passage of time, and that age is just a relative concept. “You’re as old as you feel, in your heart, in your head. And it’s definitely not a number on a passport,” she said.
Proud of her life’s journey, she stresses that truth and honesty are values she has always held, and that they come from her upbringing in the Grimaldi family. “In our family we told each other everything, we didn’t lie to each other,” she says in the book entitled L’homme et le prince (The Man and the Prince). Openness and loyalty to others are principles that she strongly upholds, even if it sometimes means saying things that might make people uncomfortable. “When something’s not write, you need to say so,“ she told the magazine.
Princess Stéphanie also revealed that her role as a member of the Grimaldi family implies a profound sense of duty towards Monaco and its inhabitants: “In my role in Monaco, alongside my brother, or my parents in the past, I don’t listen to myself, I have to represent our country.”
“We’ve created our own little cocoon”
These days she is less attracted to the spotlight. After years of public service, the Princess has gradually withdrawn from the media scene, preferring to devote her energy to other causes close to her heart, such as animal protection. She now leads a peaceful life, surrounded by her animals, on the vast 50-hectare Fontbonne estate in Peille, She says: “ I take in animals who have been taken away from people who mistreated them. I’m intent on saving them.”
As well as spending time with her animals, the Princess also makes the most of her family. She had already spoken of the joy of being a grandmother to granddaughters Victoire and Constance: “It’s an incredible, magical joy, being a grandmother.” Today, “her house is filled with the laughter of her two granddaughters,” writes Gala magazine. “I like big family get-togethers. I’ve managed that with my children. We are very close. We’ve created our own little cocoon and now it is growing. And you know what, so much the better!” she confided.