Princess Beatrice's pregnancy has been making headlines in the royal world since Buckingham Palace announced the happy news on Oct. 1. But while you likely know plenty about Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson's oldest child, you might not be as familiar with her husband, Edoardo "Edo" Mapelli Mozzi.
Although he wasn't born into a royal family, the 40-year-old property development executive actually has plenty of ties to both the British royals and Italian aristocracy. His Biritish-Italian father, Count Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi, competed as an Olympic skiier and grew up on the palatial Villa Mapelli Mozzi estate in Italy (which these days, serves as a very posh wedding and corporate venue).
Edo's parents divorced, and little is known about his father today other than he's said to reside in France. His mother, Nikki Williams-Ellis, remarried politician Christopher Shale, who raised Edoardo as his own. The couple welcomed a son, Alby Shale, joining Edo and older sister Natalia Mapelli Mozzi.
Princess Beatrice actually knew her now-husband growing up, as it turns out Edo's family is close friends with her parents. His mother and late stepfather both counted the York family as pals and as Tatler reports, Beatrice attended Shale's 2011 funeral with her parents. The couples were so close that the Duchess of York was even named Alby's godmother.
Alby and Edoardo share a close bond and founded a charity called Cricket Builds Hope together to honor Shale's memory, per Hello!
"Christopher had been involved in teaching cricket in Rwanda and Edo and Alby used to go out there," stepfather David Williams-Ellis—who married Alby and Edoardo's mom in 2017—told the magazine.
The British sculptor added that when Shale passed away suddenly, the brothers "wanted to do something, so, along with their mother, they raised a considerable sum of money and built a cricket ground in Rwanda which is now one of the top three cricket grounds outside England."
Prior to his relationship with Princess Beatrice, Edoardo was enaged to architect Dara Huang, with the two sharing an 8-year-old son, Christopher Woolf "Wolfie" Mapelli Mozzi, named to honor his beloved stepfather, Shale.
He started dating his now-wife in 2018, stepping out for the first time in public together at the National Portrait Gallery's annual gala in 2019.
"When Beatrice first met Edo she was a teenager. Edo was maybe 18, 19 and probably looking out into the world, which looked rather exciting and glamorous," his stepfather told Hello!, adding that Edo and Beatrice "formed a bond from quite early on in their lives, which they revisited when they re-met and fell in love."
The couple's engagement was announced in 2019, and they married in a secret 2020 wedding with just close family present due to the pandemic. On Sept. 18, 2021, they welcomed their first child together, a daughter named Sienna Mapelli Mozzi.
As for his profession, the busy entrepreneur—who holds a MA in politics from the University of Edinburgh—serves as CEO and creative director of Banda Property, an interior design and property development company. Like his wife, Edoardo is dyslexic, a fact the princess revealed in a 2021 interview with Hello!
Beatrice and Edo are reported to have purchased a historic home located in England's quaint Cotswolds region in 2022, and it sounds like they'll be setting up a new nursery soon enough. The couple will welcome their second child together in "early spring," per Buckingham Palace.
