What happened to Grace Kelly?

was grace kelly a prisoner or fairy tale princess what happened to grace kelly the true story of grace kelly's death and why rumors surrounding it have been so persistent [Music] grace's reign came to a premature and tragic end on the 13th of september 1982 as she drove home from a trip to her summer residence rock again negotiating a treacherous mountain road with her 17 year old daughter stephanie grace suffered a stroke and lost control of the car as the vehicle careered off of the road and plunged down the mountainside stephanie desperately tried to regain control of the wheel but the steep drop made it impossible [Music] when the car finally came to rest grace was unconscious and stephanie was left with a fractured vertebrae mother and daughter were rushed to hospital where it was found that grace had multiple internal traumas and catastrophic head injuries grace was placed on life support and prince rainier rushed to his wife's bedside where he would remain for the final hours of her life just before 11 p.m on the 14th of september 1982 grace was declared brain dead with rainier's permission her life support was switched off and moments later princess grace of monaco was dead [Music] the land to which grace had given her life was plunged into deep mourning and the tragedy sent shockwaves around the world to the masses who saw only her public face grace had been cruelly robbed of her happy ending her real-life fairy tale violently cut short she had lived a hollywood romance and happily ever after had seemed assured it was not supposed to end in tragedy [Music] grace was laid to rest in the saint nicholas cathedral monaco the same church in which she had been married 26 years earlier thousands turned out to mourn her and the congregation inside the church numbered into the hundreds among those present that day was grace's recent friend diana princess of wales whose own life would end tragically just short of 15 years later just as diana's death has been the subject of many debates and conspiracy theories rumors soon began to swirl about the exact circumstances behind grace's accident [Music] for all the rumors of a loveless marriage and his disinterest in his wife prince rainier was left bereft by grace's death he lived until 2005 and though new romances came and went he never remarried when he died aged 81 he was laid to rest in the cathedral beside grace [Music] so what was the truth of grace kelly's journey from hollywood royalty to real life monarchy was it really a fairy tale come true spoiled only by an ending that was far from happily ever after or was grace a privileged prisoner a woman bound by duty and protocol and kept in a gilded cage from which there was no [Music] escape official biographers and the royal family maintain that it was the former that grace's marriage was strong and that she was happy to retire from acting unofficial biographers and the makers of a recent and notoriously ill-received film grace of monaco declared it very much the latter to them her life was an elegant tragedy the tale of a vibrant woman whose joy and talent was crushed beneath the weight of expectation [Music] the truth is likely somewhere in the middle grace certainly made compromises when she accepted her prince's proposal and no doubt looked back on the career she had known with a roofal sense of what might have been yet grace was an intelligent woman and one who knew her own mind even in the midst of a royal romance it is difficult to believe that she had no idea of what the marriage might mean for her career and what would be expected for her as princess of monaco [Music] it is true that even the most charmed life knows sadness and grace's was no exception protected by the grimaldi family she remains as pampered and unknowable in death as she was in life yet one thing is certain whether as screen goddess fairy tale princess or tragic victim of royal protocol grace kelly remains a legend an icon of an age past and the girl who if only for a moment played the starring role in her very own fairy tale [Music] the conspiracy theories almost as soon as grace's car went off the road on that fateful day rumors of foul play and cover-ups began to emerge none have ever been proven but the gossip has sometimes been more far-fetched than any film [Music] who was in the driving seat the official findings of the investigation into the crash recorded that grace was driving and stephanie was her passenger stephanie and grace had a fractious relationship and ever since the accident stephanie has been forced to deny allegations that she was the real driver at the time of the crash although eyewitnesses all agree that they saw grace driving in the hours leading up to the fatal accident the whispers just won't go away [Music] why would princess grace have been driving another complication about the question of who was driving is that while stephanie was not a licensed driver grace was known to despise driving following a car crash in monaco in the 1970s she was hurt to swear off of driving forever thereafter she employed a chauffeur except on that fateful day according to an excerpt from rainier and grace an intimate portrait published in the chicago tribune the back seat of the rover was covered with dresses and hat boxes leaving no room for grace her daughter and a chauffeur the chauffeur even offered to make a second trip for the clothes so then why did grace insist she would drive anyway especially given that the road back from rock agael was a notoriously treacherous mountain descent [Music] could the brakes have failed one witness claimed he saw the car swerving erratically and descended the mountain at an alarming speed with no skid marks people speculated the car's brakes had failed stephanie later told her sister caroline that as the car swerved out of control grace was screaming the brakes don't work i can't stop but british leyland the manufacturer of the rover p6 3500 gave an official statement that this particular car had been fitted with a dual brake system that is literally fail safe so if the brakes didn't fail then why was the car accelerating down the mountain [Music] princess grace have confused the brake pedal with the accelerator if the brakes hadn't failed but the car was accelerating then it's possible whoever was driving the car had somehow confused the brake pedal with the accelerator pedal princess stephanie in fact asked this very question did my mother confuse the brake pedal with the accelerator i don't know we may never know the truth [Music] were mother and daughter arguing at the time of the crash some theorized grace hadn't lost control of the car but rather of her emotions that summer mother and daughter had been engaged in an ongoing argument over stephanie's plans to marry her then-boyfriend paul son of french film star jean-paul belmondo if the argument had become heated that day it might explain the erratic driving it could even explain why whoever was driving might have confused the brake pedal with the accelerator [Music] maybe it was a stroke doctors who examined grace after the accident diagnosed her as having had two brain hemorrhages only one of which was caused by the impact of the crash as a result it was speculated grace had suffered a stroke while driving rendering her incapable of hitting the brakes in fact this is the accepted explanation and stephanie did recall her mother had complained of a headache but if grace had suffered a stroke how would she have been able to cry out in panic as stephanie recalled [Music] but why would princess grace have had a stroke princess grace was only 52 at the time of her death which is on the young side for stroke victims some family members claim princess grace had been suffering from high blood pressure which is a risk factor for stroke but doctors denied she had high blood pressure in addition she wasn't overweight which is another important stroke risk factor so if princess grace had a stroke at the age of 52 what would have caused it [Music] what had been going on with princess grace that summer she wasn't feeling too well princess gracie's daughter caroline has noted she was incredibly tired the summer had been very busy she hadn't stopped going places and doing things all summer long she'd done too much she never mentioned it or complained about it though but she wasn't in great form others point out she'd been suffering from menopause symptoms but what relevance does any of this play into what happened that fateful day [Music] the freemasons a fortnight before the crash the membership of the notorious p2 masonic lodge was made public and there among the most illustrious names in europe was prince rainier some members of the lodge were involved in extortion fraud and criminal activity at the highest level though there is no suggestion that the prince was involved in any wrongdoing did grace kill herself because she was ashamed of her husband's involvement with the lodge or did powerful lodge members have her murdered as a warning to her husband probably neither but it made for a dramatic conspiracy [Music] theory the monaco mafia one of the earliest theories to emerge involved perhaps inevitably the mafia monaco made its money through casinos and where there are casinos money laundering is never far behind with no proof to support the idea conspiracy theorists imagined a scenario in which the noble princess wanted to defend monaco's casinos against the reach of the mafia knowing that their plans would be foiled as long as the princess lived the ruthless mob ordered her death and a hitman sabotaged the brakes on her car even though engineers later confirmed they were in full working order [Music] why couldn't anyone get the story straight in the immediate wake of the crash the monaco palace never suggested princess grace's injuries were anything more serious than broken bones but apparently grace had lost consciousness and never regained it 36 hours after the crash having been told that grace had suffered irreversible brain damage her family including prince rainier elected to terminate life support why the miscommunication some point out the possibility that stephanie was driving as a motivating factor others point out that perhaps princess grace had not received the best medical care [Music]

Channel: Age Of Vintage

Views: 136,170

Keywords: Grace Kelly, grace kelly and prince rainier, grace kelly biography, grace kelly bio, grace kelly autobiography, grace kelly biography book, grace kelly facts, grace kelly biography youtube, grace kelly bio movie, What happened to Grace Kelly?, Did Grace Kelly sing in high society?

Id: ijLiN3xh46E

Length: 15min 32sec (932 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020