Принцесса Майкл Кентская: биография и деятельность

Wife of Prince Michael of Kent

Princess Michael of Kent (born Baroness Marie Christine Anna Agnes Hedwig Ida von Reibnitz, 15 January 1945) is a member of the British royal family who is of German, Austrian, Czech and Hungarian descent. She is married to Prince Michael of Kent, who is a grandson of King George V. Princess Michael of Kent was an interior designer before becoming an author; she has written several books on European royalty.

Prince and Princess Michael represented the Queen at the Belize independence celebrations and at the coronation of King Mswati III of Eswatini. Prince Michael also supports a large number of charities and organisations, and Princess Michael supports him in his work. Since she was a teenager, Princess Michael has held a long and enduring passion for the conservation of cheetahs and she is international royal patron for the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia. She is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, a learned society dedicated to natural history and taxonomy.

Prince Michael has never received a parliamentary annuity or an allowance from the Privy Purse. The couple have had the use of a five bedroom, five reception grace and favour apartment at Kensington Palace. Queen Elizabeth II had paid the rent for the apartment at a market rate of £120,000 annually from her own private funds with the couple paying the nominal amount of £70 per week. The rent goes to the Grant in aid, provided by the Government for the maintenance of the Occupied Royal Palaces. The rent is based on the current rate for commercially rented properties at Kensington Palace, and is recorded in the overall figures for commercial rents in the Grant in aid annual report. This rent payment by the Queen is "in recognition of the Royal engagements and work for various charities which Prince and Princess Michael of Kent have undertaken at their own expense, and without any public funding", according to a statement released by the British Monarchy Media Centre. In 2008, it was announced that it had been agreed that Prince and Princess Michael would pay rent of £120,000 a year from their own funds from 2010. Members of Parliament on the public accounts committee had demanded the change after the Kents' rent had come to light. On the last day of the Pope's visit, 19 September, she attended the open air Mass of beatification for Cardinal John Henry Newman at Cofton Park, Birmingham. Princess Michael was personally involved in the beatification process and attended several other celebrations relating to his beatification before and after the Cofton Park Mass, including a commemorative concert of the Dream of Gerontius at Birmingham Town Hall on 18 September. She also attended a civic dinner with invited dignitaries and bishops in Birmingham, before attending the Mass and meeting the Pope. Previously, in November 2008, the Princess attended the translation of remains of Cardinal Newman at Birmingham Oratory along with other guests of honour, including Francis Campbell, HM Ambassador to the Holy See; the Lord Mayor of Birmingham and Lady Mayoress; Sir Ivor Roberts, President of Trinity College, Oxford, and formerly British Ambassador to Italy; and Sir Derek Morris, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford. After the Translation Mass, Princess Michael was shown round Cardinal Newman's Room and Chapel and visited Newman's library.

The Princess has a controversial history of statements and actions that have been accused of being racist. The media claim she once declared to an American fashion magazine that she had "more royal blood in her veins than any person to marry into the royal family since Prince Philip". After being told about Princess Michael's lineage by Lord Mountbatten, Queen Elizabeth II reportedly joked that she was "a bit too grand for us". In 2004, she was accused of racially insulting black diners at a restaurant in New York. A spokesperson acknowledged that the Princess had been angry at the group, who were seated at a table near her, but denied that she had told them to "go back to the colonies". In an interview with a newspaper she reflected on her encounter with "a group of rappers", which in fact included the TV reporter A. J. Calloway as well as a banker, a lawyer, and a music mogul. She claimed that "nobody would have got excited" had he worn the hammer and sickle. The Princess shared her opinions on Diana, Princess of Wales, describing her as a "bitter" and "nasty" woman. In January 2014, the Princess was interviewed by Conrad Black. She described the older generation of the royal family as "boring for most people". In December 2017, the Princess was criticised for wearing a blackamoor brooch with a stylised figure of an African man to a Christmas banquet at Buckingham Palace. Meghan Markle, later the Duchess of Sussex, a mixed race American woman of African and European descent, and at the time the fiancée of Prince Harry, was present at the dinner. A spokesperson for the Princess later said that she "is very sorry and distressed that it has caused offence". In April 2018, her daughter's former partner, Aatish Taseer, alleged that the Princess had owned a pair of black sheep that she named after Venus and Serena Williams.

In 1985, Marie Christine was hospitalised for one week to undergo treatments for "nervous exhaustion". In May 2021, it was reported that Princess Michael was suffering from blood clots after being diagnosed with COVID 19 six months earlier. She is known to have suffered from lung issues in her childhood. As Prince Michael was the only male line grandson of King George V not granted a royal peerage on marriage, the feminine style of Prince Michael of Kent was adopted.