Yesterday, we learned that Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi are engaged now. Considering the Yorks had been pushing engagement stories for months, the announcement wasn’t a big surprise to royal-gossipers. But it’s interesting because of how quickly everything happened, and how maybe Edo wasn’t fully vetted? I don’t know, I’m not really judging – I think it’s good for the Windsors when they marry people who have somewhat messy romantic histories. People freaked out because the Duchess of Sussex had a starter marriage under her belt, but those same people don’t seem to be freaked out at all about the fact that Edoardo has a son from a previous relationship, and that he dumped his baby-mama rather suddenly:
Princess Beatrice’s husband-to-be is a millionaire property tycoon who was engaged to marry the mother of his two-year-old son before they suddenly split last year. Beatrice, 31, today announced her engagement to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, 34, just 11 months after the couple first started dating seriously following her sister Princess Eugenie’s wedding in October 2018. Known as Edo to friends – the entrepreneur son of a skiing aristocrat named Count Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi – he helped mend Beatrice’s broken heart following her split from Dave Clark in 2016 after 10 years together. But he himself has found happiness after his engagement to glamorous Chinese-American architect Dara Huang ended suddenly.
Her mother American mother Lily, 69, claimed that Dara ended up on a friend’s sofa – and she only found out they split when he was first seen with the Queen’s granddaughter six months after they split, claiming: ‘I think Dara was hiding it from me’. Dara and Edo share custody of their little boy Christopher, who has the nickname ‘Woolfie’, with friends claiming his parents’ split was more amicable than her mother suggested. They lived together in London after they broke up so ‘Woolfie’ saw a lot of both his parents before the architect moved into her own flat.
But his ex-fiancee is yet to address news of his engagement this morning – instead the architect has been posting updates of her recent business trip to Thailand and being ‘jet-lagged’ in London. Describing how how he brings up his son he said recently: ‘I take [Christopher] to school a couple of mornings a week and finish in time to put him in bed three or four evenings’.
No one was more surprised at the news that Edo was dating the Queen’s 31-year-old grand-daughter than Dara’s mother, Lily, who flew to London from her home in Florida when her grandson Wolfie was born, and has made two visits since. She said last year she had no idea her daughter and Edo were no longer together until she was told by her elder daughter, Erin, recently. ‘I think Dara was hiding it from me,’ said Lily, 69, whose husband Po-Tien, 80, is a retired scientist with the American space agency Nasa. ‘She didn’t want me to be sad. I am shocked.’ She believes it came as a shock to her daughter as well, so sudden was the split. According to Lily, her 37-year-old daughter had to leave Edo’s flat and was staying with a close friend, sleeping on the sofa, while looking for an apartment.
Well… at least Edo didn’t dump Dara FOR Beatrice. Edo dumped Dara (his fiancee and baby-mama) so suddenly that she had to sleep on friends’ couches and then about 10 or 11 months six months later, he started dating Beatrice. Whom he had known for years. And then Beatrice and her family pressured him into proposing very quickly. There will be those who say “well, he just knew Beatrice was the One, everything fit together so that’s why he proposed.” Yeah but… I don’t know. It definitely feels like Edo’s backstory could possibly be a bigger deal.
Also: so much is being made about Beatrice’s engagement ring. It’s an okay ring, I don’t really understand the need for all of these interviews by the ring designer Shaun Leane. Leane spoke to People Magazine and made it sound like Edo had to come in and specially “design” the ring. It’s a circular diamond center stone with baguettes. Literally every major jewelry company already offers a version of this ring already. Oh, and don’t forget this – people are comparing Beatrice’s ring to the Queen’s engagement ring. Yes, I’m sure Edo researched the Queen’s ring and wanted that for Beatrice??
Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red, Backgrid and Instagram.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pLHLnpmirJOdxm%2BvzqZmb2tmZ4V4e8SdppqqlKSsrq3PnqOloY%2BivLvGyJibrqWgmrGgtMislp6wXZu2orrCnpyYmpGXxm65wKaYmKqVlrmtxb6srJ2claO5uqvJrqqtl5autqB7