The renowned French businessman and editor Jean-Yves Le Fur died during the night of Sunday to Monday, April 1, after a long illness at the age of 59. This was announced by the mother of his son, the filmmaker Maïwenn: “Jean-Yves Le Fur, the love of my life, the father of my son Diego and the father-in-law of my daughter Shanna, left on Sunday morning in my arms and in those of our son, under the protection of Frédérick, his older brother, and Jaky, his lifelong friend. We are all devastated.”
Before meeting the filmmaker, he was about to marry Princess Estefanía of Monaco. He was considered the first love of the daughter of Rainier III and Grace Kelly and was seen on several occasions with the Grimaldis in the principality. It was in 1990 when their engagement was announced, but the relationship broke up before going down the aisle.
Le Fur made a career mainly in the field of fashion and television production. With his events agency Mad (Made in K), he was a major player in the production of fashion shows and events in the early 2000s, and ran the magazines DS Magazine and Numéro.
The deceased was known mainly to the general public for his fleeting relationship with the Monegasque princess and, later, for his union with the actress and director Maïwenn, with whom he was married between 2002 and 2004 and with whom he had a son, the artist musician and tennis player Diego Le Fur.
Stephanie of Monaco had her first child just two years after announcing her engagement to Jean-Yves Le Fur, but the father was the princess’s bodyguard, Daniel Ducruet. Together they had Louis on November 26, 1992 and her second daughter, Pauline Ducruet, on May 4, 1994. The wedding came on July 1, 1995 and with it the inclusion of the little ones in the line of succession. But the couple’s happiness was short-lived, because, just one year after the wedding, the scandal over some images of the bodyguard with a Belgian dancer precipitated the divorce.
Estefania had one more daughter, Camille Marie Kelly Gottlieb, the result of her relationship with Jean Raymond Gottlieb, another family bodyguard. Already a mother of three children, the princess fell in love with the elephant tamer Franco Knie. With her children, still infants, she joined the circus and with it the nomadic life, but that relationship did not last. A few years later she secretly married the acrobat Adans Peres, ten years younger than her and from whom she separated in nine months. Since then she has not been known to have any romantic relationship.
Estafanía’s third daughter, Camille, is not in the Monaco line of succession because her parents were not married, but she is invited to many of the family events held in Monaco.
