Princesses Behaving Badly (27 page)

But there was more to the new image than just keen business acumen. Gloria had found God. She’d always had her faith: “Even when I was partying and going to Studio 54, I was still attending church,” she told the
New York Times
in 2008. “Maybe just not the early Mass.” But for a while, religion took a backseat to meeting rock stars and spending money. As she explained to
Vanity Fair
in 2006: “Once I met them, the myth collapsed. With the Church, it was exactly the contrary. When I met Pope John Paul, he was even more than I thought he would be.”

When Gloria’s fortunes hit rock bottom, she turned to religion: “That crisis was when I really went back to praying regularly,” she said. In 1991, she volunteered for the first time at Lourdes, the town in southern France where the Virgin Mary was said to have appeared in 1858 to a 14-year-old peasant girl. She helped the sick and dying who were seeking a miracle cure there. Fourteen years later, an auction house sold off 100 of her old couture dresses, with the proceeds going to the relief organization of the Order of Malta, a Catholic charity that organizes pilgrimages to Lourdes. Throughout the 1990s, she had cultivated relationships
with powerful Catholic leaders, with the express wish to revive the relationships between old aristocratic families and the Roman Catholic church. And when Pope John Paul II died in April 2005, she was one of the first laypeople to be received by the new pope, Benedict XVI. Reconciling the hard partier and the hard prayer was easy for her. “Catholicism is a very sensual religion, which means that flesh and soul are compatible,” she told the
New York Times
.

It’s fitting that Gloria wore Marie Antoinette’s pearl tiara at her husband’s birthday. Like the famous French queen, the fashionable Princess TNT has a flair for excess and loves a good party. But unlike her guillotined counterpart, Gloria faced devastation and kept her head. Does she miss the ’80s? Probably a little. But she doesn’t regret what she called her “spoiled brat” years: “I think it’s the privilege of youth to be curious, fun-loving, even wild. I also think that every age has its own behavior,” she told
W
magazine in 2012. “You don’t want to behave like you’re 70 when you’re in your 20s. And vice versa.”

Does being a princess automatically come with an insatiable need for worldly goods? Yes, at least according to the examples of these regal shopaholics.

M
ARIE
A
UGUSTE VON
T
HURN UND
T
AXIS

Wife of the ruler of a powerful German principality, Princess Marie Auguste von Thurn und Taxis was in many ways not your typical eighteenth-century royal lady. She was a skilled political operator who used intrigues, covert diplomacy, and her feminine wiles to influence the court. She could be forthright and passionate, loudly speaking her mind on matters of the state. Her husband became so irritated at her influence that he made her promise, in writing, not to meddle.

But Marie Auguste was stereotypical in one sense: she liked pretty clothes. Her closet contained some 228 dresses, including seven state gowns, those massive confections of sumptuous fabrics, frilly lace, and all kinds of frothy trimmings. The most expensive cost 500 florins, more than 30 times the annual income of a servant in her court. Her jewelry collection was valued at 89,000 florins, an astronomical sum equal to a year’s wages for more than 5,000 people.

Marie Auguste used her wardrobe and her jewelry to impress upon the court her importance and her rank; it was as much a part of her efforts to influence policy and policymakers as any of the intrigues she may have conducted. But it didn’t make her terribly popular with her subjects, especially because, at least in part, it was the country’s money she was spending. Moreover, she couldn’t afford all that stuff. When she died in 1756, she owed 50,402 florins to various shopkeepers, dressmakers, and craftsmen, as well as to her own put-upon servants.

E
LIZABETH
I
OF
R
USSIA

Marie Auguste’s wardrobe was positively empty compared to that of her contemporary, Empress Elizabeth I of Russia. And speaking of empty, so was Russia’s treasury.

That’s because Elizabeth was rumored to have spent it all. When she died, she was survived by 15,000 dresses, not to mention the countless sets of men’s clothing she liked to wear, two trunks full of stockings, and several thousand pairs of shoes. Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth changed clothes multiple times a day and never wore the same outfit twice. She also took pains to ensure that of all the ladies at court, she was the most fashionable. She passed laws requiring foreign fabric salesmen to offer her first dibs, on pain of arrest. Wearing the same hairstyle or even a similar accessory or ensemble as the empress would spark her anger, so much so that she sometimes turned violent.

Elizabeth hosted two balls every week, and her dinners were perhaps the best place to witness her conspicuous consumption. She had more silver and gold tableware made during her reign than any other Russian ruler. And gracing those settings were fresh fruits, a rarity in those days, and wine and champagne by the bucketload.

That taste for the finer things set the tone for Elizabeth’s court. Her courtiers fancied diamond-studded buttons, buckles, and epaulettes; they ordered their suits by the dozen and dressed their own servants in gold cloth. Elizabeth did have her good points—she was an intelligent woman, a keen diplomat, and a pacifist who maintained that she would never sign a death warrant (and she didn’t). Moreover, her demand for exotic and luxury goods stimulated the growth of infrastructure, such as the postal service. Still, she spent money as if it didn’t come from the blood, sweat, and tears of her subjects, and when she died in 1762, she was up to her eyeballs in debt.

M
AHA
A
L
-S
UDAIRI

Modern-day princess Maha Al-Sudairi has a taste for the finer things—she just doesn’t like paying for them. In June 2012, she was nearly arrested in Paris after she and her retinue of 60 servants were caught trying to sneak out of the exclusive five-star Shangri-la Hotel at 3:30 in the morning without paying their $8 million tab. It may have been the fleet of limousines parked at the curb that tipped off management that she was doing a runner.

The ex-wife of Saudi Arabian crown prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz had been staying in the hotel since December, when she’d taken over the entire forty-first floor. But the hotel had to eat the cost of her stay. When nabbed trying to skip out, the princess claimed diplomatic immunity, leaving Parisian police with their hands tied. She decamped to another five-star hotel, the Royal Monceau, this one owned by a friend of the family.

It wasn’t the only time the princess racked up a huge bill and refused to pony up. In June 2009 she also claimed diplomatic immunity after amassing a stunning $24.2 million in unpaid shopping receipts, including $94,000 on lingerie alone. That time, too, the French were left holding the bag.

S
RIRASMI OF
T
HAILAND

Princess Srirasmi has lovely breasts, and her husband really likes their dog. These two facts collided when Prince Vajiralongkorn, Thailand’s crown prince, threw a lavish birthday party for Foo Foo, their fluffy white poodle, and Princess Srirasmi was seen celebrating in nothing but a G-string and a hat (with strains of George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” audible in the background). Notably, everyone else—including the dog—was fully clothed. Also notably, Foo Foo holds the rank of air chief marshal in Thailand.

The topless pooch-party incident would have remained a private affair had the whole thing not been caught on video, with the footage somehow finding its way to an Australian TV
station in 2009. Criticism of the royal family is outlawed in Thailand, but the video drew the ire of the nation that will inherit these charming people as rulers when the ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej dies. Evidently, Thai officials have long expressed concerns that the heir apparent is less than suited for the task of ruling the country.

As you might expect from a woman who hangs out at her dog’s birthday party in her own birthday suit, this wasn’t the only time Princess Srirasmi made international headlines. In October 2012, she upheld her reputation for excess when she descended on an English antiques center and spent $40,000 during an eight-hour shopping spree that saw her literally stripping the shelves. Most items only cost between $15 and $60—that’s a lot of china dogs and silver tea services.

Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

M
AY
17, 1768–A
UGUST
7, 1821
B
RITAIN AND VARIOUS
C
ONTINENTAL TOURIST SPOTS

G
eorge, Prince of Wales, met his intended bride, Princess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, for the first time two days before their marriage. Etiquette demanded that he embrace her, which he did—then recoiled and fled the room, crying to his servant, “I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy.” He stayed drunk
for the next three days. The relationship went downhill from there.

Nobody knows what it was about Caroline that turned off the prince so violently at that introduction. She wasn’t storybook beautiful, but she certainly wasn’t run-away-and-get-drunk ugly. And though she was known for being less than dedicated to her personal hygiene, contemporary accounts claim that she’d been groomed particularly well for the meeting. Nevertheless, the two had barely exchanged conversation before George decided she was his intellectual and social inferior, a woman to be endured, not enjoyed. And the prince’s good opinion, once lost, was lost forever.

Not that he was any catch, either. “Prinney,” as the 32-year-old prince was widely (and absurdly) known, was vain and snobbish but could be extremely charming when he wanted to be. He was also a corset-wearing drunk who would later tip the scales at more than 240 pounds. A terrible gambler and talented spender, he was always in debt. And then there was the little detail that he was already married, and had been for 10 years, to the very patient Maria Fitzherbert.

None of that mattered a bit in the royal marriage market. Mrs. Fitzherbert was a commoner and, even worse for the Protestant crown, a Catholic; the pair had wed without the king’s consent, so technically the marriage didn’t count. And what did a few extra pounds and an awful personality matter next to the fact that he’d be king? By royal logic, the prince was the most eligible bachelor in Europe.

Prinney needed to get hitched—and fast. By 1794, he was an incredible £650,000 in debt (more than $40 million today), having spent wildly on art, building projects, fancy clothing, wine, and racehorses. Crisis hit when several angry tradesmen to whom he owed money filed a petition demanding payment. Parliament would agree to pay the debts only if the prince married. No one, least of all Prinney, cared who the bride was, as long as she was a princess, a Protestant, and in possession of a pulse.

Princess Caroline, the extremely available daughter of a powerful German duke, was the prince’s first cousin. It’s likely that hers was the first
name mentioned and that Prinney, anxious to get out from under his weighty debt, seized on it. Had he done even the slightest bit of homework on his would-be wife, perhaps the whole farcical tragedy that followed would have been avoided. Because, unfortunately, his 26-year-old cousin was the rotund embodiment of everything he loathed.

Though good-natured, Caroline was untidy, graceless, and chubby. She was also loud, vulgar, and devoid of tact or discretion. She liked to flirt, earning her a reputation as “very loose” and guilty of “indecent conduct.” She wasn’t stupid, exactly, but she was shallow. She loved gossip, asked impertinent questions, had a crude sense of humor, and was often childish and disrespectful. Adding to this pretty picture, Caroline didn’t wash, or at least not enough; her undergarments, too, went overly long between lauderings. Were there ever two people more ill-suited for each other?