I get sad when people don’t pay attention to Charlotte Casiraghi. She has a lot of potential to be a standard of royal and royal-adjacent gossip coverage, but I end up ignoring her most of the time because there doesn’t seem to be a ton of interest in her. Charlotte got knocked up by her boyfriend back in 2013. It was sort of scandalous because her lover was Gad Elmalah, a 16-years-older French-Moroccan and a non-Catholic (Gad is Jewish). Charlotte didn’t confirm her pregnancy until the very late stages, and when it was announced, she packaged it with an engagement announcement too. The baby, a little boy, was born in December 2013. Charlotte and Gad named him Raphael. Things were pretty quiet and in the year and a half that followed, Gad and Charlotte did not marry. And now they never will. Apparently Charlotte has dumped him!
Charlotte Casiraghi is nursing a broken heart – and a sore back after falling off her horse in a jumping competition today. The 28-year-old – who is eighth in line to Monaco’s throne –has abruptly split after three years with French comedian-actor Gad Elmaleh, 44, PEOPLE confirms. The couple are parents to a 17-month-old son, Raphaël.
“It’s sad,” a source close to the couple tells PEOPLE, confirming reports that broke in the French media on Thursday. “Mostly, this is a couple that drifted apart over their careers. He wasn’t around enough – and she wanted a father for her son.”
With a 16-year age gap, the princess – whose mom is Monaco’s Princess Caroline and grandma is the late American actress-turned-Princess Grace Kelly – and the comedian were an unconventional and extremely private couple. After meeting at a party in late 2011, the pair embarked on a discreet relationship that quickly went from whispered affair to tabloid favorite.
Their coming-out was a public appearance together in March 2013 alongside members of the Monaco royal family at the Bal de la Rose – but they continued to maintain a quiet profile, even as Casiraghi prepared to give birth to their son in December that year.
Never married, the couple split their time largely between France and Los Angeles. Their backgrounds and interests were wildly divergent: Casiraghi is a competitive horse jumper and Gucci model. Elmaleh is a Moroccan-born, French stand-up comedian and actor who appeared in 2011’s Midnight In Paris. He has a 15-year-old son, Noé, from a previous relationship with French actress Anne Brochet.
It’s worth noting that once again, People Magazine gets the titles wrong. They want to make everyone into a princess. Charlotte is not a princess. Her mother, Princess Caroline, wanted her children to be without royal titles. Charlotte has always been known as Charlotte Casiraghi. It was said that the late Prince Rainier adored Charlotte in particular (out of all his grandchildren) and from what I understand, she’s already a significantly wealthy heiress, mostly from what her grandfather left her.
Considering Charlotte’s uncle Prince Albert finally got around to providing the Grimaldi throne with some legitimate heirs, it’s not like Charlotte’s place in Monaco’s line of succession is particularly urgent. She’s rich, she’s beautiful, she can do whatever she wants. But it’s still rather surprising to see a young, royal-adjacent almost-princess having a baby out of wedlock and breaking up with the dude before they even get married. Who should she get with next? Prince Harry is a pipe dream. I could see her with an American movie star though. Jake Gyllenhaal’s probably in the market for a new girlfriend. Oooh, Bradley Cooper would be excellent! He already speaks French.
Photos courtesy of Getty, WENN.
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