Princess Stéphanie Marie Elisabeth Grimaldi (b. February 1, 1965 in the Palais Princier , Monaco) is the youngest child of Grace Kelly and Rainier III of Monaco. She was the passenger in the car at the time of the accident that killed her mother on September 13, 1982. Rumours persist to this day that Stéphanie was driving. Due to being hospitalized with injuries sustained in the crash, she was unable to attend Grace's funeral.

Long l'enfant terrible of European royalty, her affairs and antics have driven Rainier to despair. At 16, she began an affair with Paul Belmondo, son of French film star Jean-Paul Belmondo, and 24 years her senior. In 1991 she became pregnant by her bodyguard, Daniel Ducruet . She gave birth to their son Louis on November 26, 1992, and daughter Pauline on May 4, 1994. She married Ducruet on July 1, 1995, but divorced him in 1996 after the press arranged to have him photographed having sex with "Miss Topless Belgium". Stéphanie then had another child, Camille, born on July 15, 1998, whom the palace confirmed was fathered by Jean Raymond Gottlieb , another royal bodyguard.

Even though they were born out of wedlock, Louis and Pauline are in line to the throne of Monaco because they were legitimated when their mother married Ducruet, and Monegasque law recognizes such children as dynastic. Camille, however, is not recognized as dynastic and will have no claim to the throne unless Stéphanie marries Gottlieb, or she is legitimated by legislation.

Stéphanie made headlines in 2002 when she lived with married elephant tamer Franco Knie in a trailer, and traveled throughout Europe with his circus act.

On September 12, 2003, she married Adans Lopez Peres , a Portuguese acrobat 10 years her junior. He is a fifth-generation performer, the eldest son of an acrobat-clown and a classically trained flamenco dancer. Lopez Peres is one half of the Peres Brothers , a circus act with his younger brother, Ivan. Rumours that she married Peres because she was pregnant with his child have turned out to be false.

On July 22, 2004, Germany's Bild newspaper reported that Stéphanie has split from Peres, has contacted lawyers to obtain a quick divorce, and is seeing Ducruet again.