Princess Stéphanie of Monaco

Princess Stéphanie Marie Elisabeth of Monaco (born 1 February 1965) is the youngest child of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, and American actress Grace Kelly.

She is the younger sister of Albert II, Prince of Monaco, and Caroline, Princess of Hanover.

Stéphanie was born to Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace on 1 February 1965 at Prince's Palace in Monaco.

She is the youngest of their three children.

She has two older siblings, Caroline and Albert.

Her godparents are her maternal uncle John B. Kelly Jr. and paternal first cousin Elisabeth-Anne de Massy.

Her mother, who described Stephanie as a "warm, bright, amusing, intelligent and capable girl" and a "good athlete", lovingly called her "wild child" (French: enfant terrible).

On 13 September 1982, while returning home from their farm in Rocagel, France, Stéphanie and her mother had a car accident.

Grace died the next day, on 14 September, while Stéphanie sustained a hairline fracture of a neck vertebra.

Although the official report of the incident was that Grace suffered a stroke while driving, rumors began that Stéphanie, who had to miss her mother's funeral due to her recovery, was the one actually driving.

Stéphanie earned her baccalauréat from the Cours Charles de Foucauld in 1982.

During her school years, she studied classical dance and piano, and competed in gymnastics and horse riding.

She also attended Camp Oneka, an all-girls' summer camp in the Pocono Mountains, in the United States, where her sister and mother both had previously attended.

In 1983, after her physical recovery from the accident that killed her mother, Stéphanie started an apprentice programme at Christian Dior under the direction of head designer Marc Bohan.

In 1985, Stéphanie appeared on the cover of German Vogue magazine and the American publication Vanity Fair.

She also became the spokesman of the Swiss beauty line La Prairie, for which she was photographed by Horst, and she appeared on the cover of French Vogue, photographed by Helmut Newton in September 1986.

In 1986, Stéphanie launched a swimwear line Pool Position with Alix de la Comble, whom she had met during her internship at Dior.

The fashion show to present the line, held at the Sporting Club in Monaco and attended by her father, Prince Rainier, and siblings, Caroline and Albert, was a major event covered by the worldwide media.

In February 1986, Stéphanie self-produced and released her first single with the French label Carrere, under the production of Yves Roze.

The song "Ouragan" and its English version "Irresistible" were both international hits, reportedly selling more than 2 million copies.

The full album Besoin, released as Stéphanie in some countries, sold more than 1.5 million, with 100,000 in France.

The single "Flash", as well as its English version "One Love to Give," also achieved success throughout Europe.

In January 1987, Stéphanie released the single "Young Ones Everywhere" to benefit UNICEF.

The same year, Stéphanie moved to Los Angeles to record a new album.

However, it took her five years to release it.

Stéphanie herself refused to speak publicly about her mother's death until 1989, when she gave an interview to the author Jeffrey Robinson, insisting that the story was untrue.

She said, "There was a lot of pressure on me because everyone was saying that I had been driving the car, that it was all my fault, that I'd killed my mother... It's not easy when you're 17 to live with that."

In 1989, Stéphanie launched her own self-titled perfume.

Stéphanie co-owns Replay cafes and stores in both Monaco and Barcelona.

The following year, she debuted as a model on the biannual haute couture special published by Spanish magazine ¡Hola!, a venture that she repeated in 1990.

The album Stéphanie, released in 1991, met with disappointing sales and negative reviews, despite the promotional tour that included a performance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Stéphanie then ended her music career after recording "In the Closet" with Michael Jackson for his album Dangerous.

The song became a worldwide hit and reached the top 10 in the United States but Stéphanie was credited on the single under the alias "Mystery Girl" and her involvement in the song was not revealed until a few years later.

She did not discuss the subject again until a 2002 interview with the French magazine Paris Match in which she repeated her earlier denial, and discussed the trauma of being beside her mother at the time of the accident.

She said, "Not only did I go through the horrible trauma of losing my mother at a very young age, but I was beside her at the moment of the accident. Nobody can imagine how much I've suffered, and still suffer."

Princess Stéphanie was educated at the Dames de Saint-Maur in Monaco, and then at the école and collège Dupanloup in Boulogne-Billancourt, France.

She made a brief return to singing in 2006, when she recorded "L'Or de nos vies", a charity single, along with her foundation Fight AIDS.

Stéphanie is the president of several associations, including Monaco Youth Centre and Princess Stéphanie Activity Centre, and is an honorary board member of the Princess Grace Foundation – United States.

In December 2008, she was guest-editor of Vogue Paris and appeared on the magazine's cover.

Currently 14th in the line of succession to the Monegasque throne, she has been a singer, swimwear designer and fashion model.