Meghan Markle isn’t Hollywood’s first princess – Grace Kelly, Rita Hayworth, Wallis Simpson and 7 more Americans who married into royalty
Grace Kelly is best known for starring in High Society alongside Frank Sinatra, and in Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief, but she also married Prince Rainier of Monaco – which other American stars married princes?
Meet 10 other American princesses from throughout the years.
Wallis Simpson
Born Bessie Wallis Warfield in Pennsylvania in 1896, she met Edward, then Prince of Wales, in the 1930s. He fell in love with the American socialite while she was still married to her second husband, Ernest Simpson. If that was not scandalous enough, Edward relinquished his crown for the woman he loved in 1936, when he realised he could not hold the title of king and be married to a divorcee.
Once Edward abdicated, the couple were exiled from Britain, living mainly in Paris, France. They became known as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and stayed together for the rest of their lives. The Duke died in 1972 and Wallis in 1986.
Fun fact: Their 14-room manse in Bois de Boulogne, Paris, was also the home of Charles de Gaulle before the Windsors. A later resident was Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed – once owner of Harrods. He renamed the home Villa Windsor.
Grace Kelly
Arguably the most well-known of American princesses, Grace Kelly was at the height of her acting career when she met Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1955, during filming for To Catch a Thief on the French Riviera.