Has This Prince Found Love With an Influencer Princess?

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Is this Europe’s big new royal romance?

Any story involving Princess Maria Chiara Di Bourbon-Two Sicilies—say it twice, bring joy to your day—and Prince Christian of Denmark requires Sunday morning croissants as accessories—especially if you wish to see her showing off her fabulous life via Instagram (“See The Good in the World”) and TikTok.

The Daily Mail ponders whether Princess Maria Chiara and Prince Christian are having a relationship, after Maria told Italian paper Corriere, “We’ve known each other since we were little, my father Carlo is godfather to his younger sister.” She then said she “hopes to meet Queen Margrethe soon,” which have sent rumors of an engagement “into overdrive,” the Mail says. (Christian’s parents are Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik, Queen Margarethe’s elder son and heir—so Maria Chiara meeting grandma would be a big deal.)

Prince Christian and Princess Maria Chiara have also been reportedly spotted eating ice cream in St. Tropez—is this extremely-rich-person code for going official?

Has the key meeting already taken place? “Chiara was presented to Queen Margrethe over the summer and they all took tea together,” an insider told Woman’s Day. “Christian knew they’d hit it off and was thrilled that she invited them to tea. It’s an informal stamp of approval for Chiara because Margrethe doesn’t take tea with just anyone.”

Margrethe, the source said, takes particular interest in Christian’s private life as he is second-in-line to the throne after Frederik. “It [is] her duty to invest time in Christian's happiness and his choice of partner.”

There has been much drama in the Danish royal family. Last year, Margrethe shocked her younger son Prince Joachim when she announced his four children would be stripped of their royal titles and would no longer be known as princes and princesses. Frederik’s children were allowed to keep their titles. Margrethe said she made the decision to help her grandchildren “shape their own lives to a much greater extent.” In March this year, Joachim announced that he and his family would be moving to America.

The Mail said rumors that Princess Maria was dating Prince Christian were sparked after they were photographed standing next to each other at the Monaco Grand Prix in May.

Chiara’s family may only be possessors of a defunct throne, and she won't inherit the titles (they will go her elder sister Maria Carolina, Duchess of Calabria and of Palermo, instead), but she has “the same responsibility to continue the history of my royal family…I feel the link with the land where the Bourbons reigned. I've just been with my parents in Hungary, an official trip, and I'm learning the sense of role. I understood that Royal Highness perhaps means being worthy, not disappointing those who look at you. It's a responsibility.”

Charles de Bourbon des Deux-Siciles, his wife Princess Camilla de Bourbon des Deux-Siciles and their daughters Maria Chiara and Maria Carolina attend the wedding ceremony of Jean-Christophe Napoleon Bonaparte and Olympia von Arco-Zinneberg at the Saint-Louis des Invalides Cathedral in Paris, France, October 19, 2019. (REUTERS/Benoit Tessier)

The sisters’ mom, Princess Camilla, Duchess of Castro is no fading flower either, and with husband Prince Carlo are family friends with Mary and Frederik. However, Camilla is also involved in a byzantine, ongoing feud with her sister over inheritance matters. (Camilla may face jail if she doesn’t pay a $2.5m court fine.)

Princess Maria Chiara even helpfully gets the rest of us up to speed with the Bourbons (up to now, you may have thought it either simply a liquor or posh cookie). “The Bourbon family is related to almost all the royal families or former rulers of Europe, it's a kind of big club,” Maria Chiara said, quoted by the Mail. “King Felipe VI of Spain, he is my father's cousin and I am very close to the heir, Leonor, who, like me, loves sports and in particular women's football. Then the Belgian royals were often our guests in the summer in Saint-Tropez…and one of my best friends is Alexandra of Hanover, Carolina of Monaco's youngest daughter.”

Kinda makes the Windsors seem dull.

Meghan and Harry ‘disagree on certain approaches’

Is there discord in the house of Sussex, or is it in the imaginings of tabloid minds? The Sun claims Prince Harry wants to “work on more solo projects and frets about his children’s safety,” while Meghan Markle “wants to move back into public life—with Archie, 4, and Lilibet, 2, by her side.”

A source told the paper of Harry: “There is a difference in how he has grown up. He fears for his own children because of what he has gone through.”

An “insider” added: “They disagree sometimes on certain approaches. Meghan would love to be done with all the legal stuff. But she’s still supportive of him as she knows how important it is to him. But she is ready to move on. They have a beautiful life in California and new friends. Montecito is paradise. Harry is very outdoorsy, he loves it there.”

The paper adds that the couple have only been seen in public together four times in the past eight months—but is that so unusual if you’re a well-known couple trying to lead a relatively quiet life in California? (Reps from WME, the talent agency representing her, visit Meghan in Montecito rather than Meghan going to LA to them, the paper says.)

The Sun says Meghan has “not been overly impressed” by Harry’s three media-related court cases. “Although she supports him, she has not delivered the ultimate show of solidarity by accompanying him to court,” the paper declares.

Maybe that’s an expression of more, “That’s my husband’s business, not mine”—and maybe Meghan, as recent reports have ventured, wants to tread a more independent path, distinctly separate to Harry’s. The Sun contrasts Harry being in Japan this week with Meghan at Taylor Swift’s concert in Los Angeles—but isn’t that just evidence of two people doing two different things rather than marital breakdown? Despite the speculation something is awry in the Sussex marriage, as the Sun says, Meghan will join Harry in Dusseldorf for the Invictus Games.

The rumors of discord come at the same time as Harry and Meghan’s HRH titles being removed from the royal family website, and a Daily Mail report detailing that while Queen Elizabeth never gave up hope that Harry would return to the royal fold, King Charles is pursuing a more ruthless tack—spurred on by Harry’s attacks on his family, particularly in his memoir Spare.

“A visceral bitterness persists at the sustained attacks that Harry and Meghan have waged against family members through his memoir and their various television interviews,” the Mail reports.

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Meghan wears ‘calming’ disc

After all that, it is no surprise that the Sunday papers report Meghan has been seen wearing a “wellness patch.” The NuCalm biosignal processing disc is supposed to have a “calming effect,” the Sun reports.

The Mail has pictures of Meghan wearing said disc, and reports that they cost $80 for a pack of 20, and are said to provide “resonance and frequencies,” as well as a sensation of calmness. Apparently, you’re supposed to place one disc three-finger lengths away from the edge of your left wrist—not your right.

This week in royal history

Royal Ascot, June 20, 2023: Britain's Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, is pictured during the Royal procession. (Reuters/Toby Melville)

Happy 73rd birthday on Tuesday to Princess Anne. The famously no-nonsense royal was born on August 15, 1950.

Unanswered questions

Are Harry and Meghan having problems, or is the media reading a lot into nothing? Do the stress discs work? How soon will Lifetime make a movie based on Princess Maria Chiara Di Bourbon-Two Sicilies and Prince Christian of Denmark?