From polo with princes William and Harry to backpacking in Brazil – the richly varied life of Jaipur’s Maharaja Padmanabh Singh

Dec 2 , 2020

Padmanabh Singh, polo-playing maharaja of Jaipur in India. Photo: @pachojaipur/Instagram

He might live in Jaipur City Palace and control a fortune of more than US$700 million, but this distinctly millennial Indian royal also crashes on friends’ couches when travelling and prefers hanging with his horses over mingling at glitzy balls

From his home in the family palace in Jaipur and a fancy flat in New York, to sharing a dorm room with school friends and backpacking through Brazil, at 22, Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh has already had enough life experiences to fill a lifetime.

Here’s what you need to know about the life of the hot young royal who opens his palace up for rent and whose horses are his first love.

An unofficial king

Although Singh’s title of maharaja is not officially recognised by law, since India’s secular democracy abolished the privy purses and inherited rights of such titles in 1971, most locals still revere the aristocracy. He took the ceremonial title in 2011 after his grandfather, Sawai Man Singh Bahadur, died.

Groomed for a life with or without luxury

At just four years old Singh went to boarding school at Mayo College in Ajmer, leaving his hometown of Jaipur far behind. He said it groomed him to become the person he is today, explaining that there were no luxuries. He has described it as a taste of “normal” life, where other children didn’t care about his fancy clothes and nobody knew his background.