Perhaps it’s wrong, but I’m enjoying the Daily Mail’s attempted takedown of Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi. Edo had given me “sleazy grifter” vibes from the start, and his relationship with Princess Beatrice seemed like a modern-day arranged marriage from the beginning. Previously, the Mail gasped in horror at the idea of Edo using his marriage to a princess for profit, to help his business and elevate his status in elite circles. The Mail has also been on the “Edo and Beatrice’s marriage is in shambles” bandwagon for months. Well, would you believe that Edo’s backstory is not what it seems? It’s almost as if the British tabloids collectively decided to hype Edo as “wealthy Italian aristocracy” for years just to tear down the image they built. Some highlights from the Mail’s latest takedown piece:

It was all lies!! When Princess Beatrice wed Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi it was said that she was marrying into one of the most eminent aristocratic families in Italy – and that her new husband stood to inherit a title, a fortune and a historic palazzo. Much was made of his Italian heritage. His father was a fabulously wealthy Count, the family seat was the opulent 18th-century neo-classical Villa Mapelli Mozzi in Lombardy – and it would all one day come to ‘Edo’. However, as the couple approach the sixth anniversary of their Windsor wedding – with rumours swirling that their relationship is no longer as harmonious as it once was – a rather different picture of Edo’s wealth and status has emerged.

The palazzo is unsellable! The Daily Mail can reveal the Mapelli Mozzi family’s ancestral home, a once-fabulous but now crumbling edifice, needs so much work that it’s considered practically unsellable. Given its condition, even if a buyer could be found it would struggle to fetch much more than £2.5million – small beer for a palace. In any case, as we can reveal, a sale wouldn’t benefit Edo financially – his side of the family are a junior branch of the Mapelli Mozzi line and as such have no legal claim over it.

Edo’s biological father: Indeed, far from having bottomless pockets as a member of Italy’s aristocracy, Edo’s three-times-married father, Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi, is living in a small property in the South of France and eking out a modest income derived from renting out small holiday lets. Mr Mapelli Mozzi senior is not a Count either. The title is only vestigial, with no legal status since Italy became a republic in 1946. And even if it were recognised again, cousins would have greater claim to its use.

Edo isn’t rich: Certainly, 42-year-old Edo, who was born in London and went to public school Radley College before graduating from Edinburgh University, is not awash with funds in the style of a scion of the Euro super wealthy. When he bought his comfortable Cotswolds family house with Beatrice he did not pay cash, but took out a mortgage just like anyone else, the Daily Mail has learned. Edo and Beatrice purchased the six-bedroom £3.5million house in June 2021, a year after they married, with a mortgage from a private bank, according to publicly available Land Registry records.

Edo’s father barely knows his son: Far from a palace, Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi lives in a £250,000 home in a sleepy hamlet near Draguignan in Provence, southern France. ‘I have plenty of opinions, but I am not going to talk about them,’ Mr Mozzi, 74, said. ‘It’s not my affair, you should go and talk to my son about it.’ Locals told us that Alessandro and his Spanish partner Marie Helene Viegas, 64, had lived in the village for several years. One said: ‘They run a holiday letting company from their home. We see them out and about walking their dogs. Everyone knows his son is married to a member of the Royal Family and lives in London. He’s mentioned it, but we have never seen them here.’

Edo will never inherit the palazzo: As for the future of Villa Mapelli Mozzi, the Daily Mail has spoken to Alessandro’s cousin Dario Mapelli Mozzi, 75, who along with a sister and another cousin, is the current joint owner. Dario Mapelli Mozzi said: ‘It would be impossible for Edo or his sister to inherit the villa, they have no share in it and there are other more legitimate heirs. I know who Edo is but I’ve never met him.’ Dario Mapelli Mozzi also revealed that the family had tried and failed to sell the decaying building two years ago. The villa had been put up for sale with a price of €3million, but a deal fell through after internal family squabbles. A subsequent proposal to turn it into a care home also failed to materialise.

Edo’s broken engagement to Dara Huang: ‘When they first got together, Edo wasn’t nearly so successful,’ said a former associate. ‘Being adjacent to royalty was transformative.’ Prior to that, the company Edo started aged 23 had enjoyed only moderate success.

This sentence is INSANE: Edo has never spoken publicly of his father but instead heaped praise on his stepfather, Nikki’s second husband the late Christopher Shale, who died aged just 56 in unusual circumstances – at Glastonbury Festival in 2011 while in a portable lavatory.

The connection between the Yorks & Shales: In fact, Sarah Ferguson had worked for Mr Shale as a secretary before her marriage, remaining friends, and so Beatrice had known Edo for much of their childhoods. Mr Shale, a close friend of former PM David Cameron, who paid a glowing tribute to him when he died, evidently also thought of Edo like his own son. He acknowledged this in his will: Edo inherited from his stepfather, although it was a sum in the region of £650,000 rather than millions. Edo was also left his stepfather’s emerald cufflinks, half his collections of watches and Hermes ties, a 12-bore shotgun, ivory hairbrushes, a gold Dupont lighter and a marble chessboard.

Edo is not even Italian: Finally, on the question of Edo’s Italianness or otherwise, we return to his cousin Dario Mapelli Mozzi at the stately home in Lombardy that Edo was supposedly one day to inherit. ‘There was talk of Edo coming to stay a few years ago when he was on holiday in Tuscany, but he never arrived,’ Mr Mapelli Mozzi told us. ‘He has certainly never been here to see the house. I don’t think he can even speak Italian.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Whenever they referred to Edo as “Italian,” I was always like… oh, he must still have a family home in Italy, or perhaps he was born in Italy and raised in the UK. But no – he doesn’t speak Italian, he’s probably never visited Italy, he was born in the UK and he has no claim to any overthrown Italian noble title, and no claim to the family palazzo. It’s almost as if the British press absolutely refused to do any research on Edo in 2019/2020 because they were so singularly devoted to having conniptions over Meghan and Harry doing or saying anything. That’s my question – where were all of these family interviews in 2019/20? I actually don’t even believe that Edo was hyping himself as an “Italian aristocrat who will eventually inherit a palazzo.” Surely, he would have known well enough that the truth would eventually come out, so the question is… who lied and why did the British press stick with those lies for years?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid and Cover Images.