Princess Beatrice’s husband-to-be is a millionaire property tycoon who was engaged to marry the mother of his two-year-old son before they suddenly split last year.
Beatrice, 31, today announced her engagement to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, 34, just 11 months after the couple first started dating seriously following her sister Princess Eugenie’s wedding in October 2018.
Known as Edo to friends – the entrepreneur son of a skiing aristocrat named Count Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi – he helped mend Beatrice’s broken heart following her split from Dave Clark in 2016 after 10 years together.
But he himself has found happiness after his engagement to glamorous Chinese-American architect Dara Huang ended suddenly.
Her mother American mother Lily, 69, claimed that Dara ended up on a friend’s sofa – and she only found out they split when he was first seen with the Queen’s granddaughter six months after they split, claiming: ‘I think Dara was hiding it from me’.
Dara and Edo share custody of their little boy Christopher, who has the nickname ‘Woolfie’, with friends claiming his parents’ split was more amicable than her mother suggested.
They lived together in London after they broke up so ‘Woolfie’ saw a lot of both his parents before the architect moved into her own flat.
But his ex-fiancee is yet to address news of his engagement this morning – instead the architect has been posting updates of her recent business trip to Thailand and being ‘jet-lagged’ in London.
Princess Beatrice will marry Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, a millionaire property tycoon who had been in a long term relationship with Dara Huang and planned to marry before they split
The former couple share a toddler son, Christopher ‘Wolfie’ Woolf, with Edo said to be very hands on with their little boy (pictured when he was a baby)
Dara is a Chinese-American architect who worked in London
Describing how how he brings up his son he said recently: ‘I take [Christopher] to school a couple of mornings a week and finish in time to put him in bed three or four evenings’.
No one was more surprised at the news that Edo was dating the Queen’s 31-year-old grand-daughter than Dara’s mother, Lily, who flew to London from her home in Florida when her grandson Wolfie was born, and has made two visits since.
She said last year she had no idea her daughter and Edo were no longer together until she was told by her elder daughter, Erin, recently.
‘I think Dara was hiding it from me,’ said Lily, 69, whose husband Po-Tien, 80, is a retired scientist with the American space agency Nasa. ‘She didn’t want me to be sad. I am shocked.’
She believes it came as a shock to her daughter as well, so sudden was the split.
According to Lily, her 37-year-old daughter had to leave Edo’s flat and was staying with a close friend, sleeping on the sofa, while looking for an apartment.
A highly-successful architect with her own design company and international clients, Dara also has to travel a great deal.
Dara, who is the founder of successful business DH Liberty, shared snaps from the conference she spoke at in Thailand on Instagram.
In one she pointed out that she was up at 6am and had escaped jet-lag and was back in London today.
Edo and Dara (pictured) share parenting duties with their son, with his father picking him up or dropping him off at nursery school around four times a week
Edoardo the son of former Olympic skier Count Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi (pictured competing in 1972)
Edoardo’s mother is Nikki Shale, whose second husband was Christopher Shale, a senior Tory and a close friend of former prime minister David Cameron
Beatrice, who has known Edoardo for several years, is said to have begun dating the millionaire after meeting him again at Eugenie’s wedding in October last year.
He is the son of former Olympic skier Count Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi and Nikki Shale, is a count himself, and has been a friend of the York children for some time before getting engaged to Beatrice.
He was educated at the prestigious Radley school in Oxfordshire before studying for a Master’s in politics at Edinburgh.
His mother is Nikki Shale, who split with his count father when he was young.
Her second husband, Edo’s step-father, was Christopher Shale, a senior Tory and a close friend of former prime minister David Cameron.
He collapsed and died in 2011 at Glasonbury Festival, after going missing for about 18 hours before he was found in a cubicle in the VIP area.
An inquest subsequently found he had been suffering from undiagnosed heart disease resulting from high blood pressure.
So devoted was Edo to his stepfather that he named his son Christopher after him.
Beatrice and the rest of her family attended the funeral, with Nikki eventually becoming engaged for the third time to sculptor David Williams-Ellis.
His stepfather and Nikki’s second husband was Christopher Shale (pictured), a senior Tory and a close friend of former prime minister David Cameron
David Cameron is pictured along with Edoardo (second left) and his mother Nikki ahead of a memorial service for her second husband Christopher Shale
She used to run a property company and was awarded an MBE by David Cameron as a parting gift following his resignation at Prime Minister in 2016.
His father is former a Olympic Alpine skier, who represented Great Britain at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Japan.
But the count and Edo’s mother divorced when Edo and his sister, Natalia, were very young, and his father later moved to France.
Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi’s ex-fiancée and mother of his son IGNORES his engagement to Princess Beatrice by sharing updates on her business trip to Thailand and architecture firm on Instagram
Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi has just announced his engagement to Princess Beatrice, but his ex-fiancee is yet to address the news.
Dara Huang, 37, who shares a two-year-old son Christopher ‘Woolfie’ Woolf with Edo, instead has been posting updates of her recent business trip to Thailand, and shared a snippet from an interview she did with an interior designs publication.
Multi-millionaire Edoardo, 34, was engaged for three-and-a-half years to his Chinese-American fiancee and is thought to have started dating Beatrice, 31, while they were still living together, after their relationship ended.
A close family friend of Edo’s stated that the couple had split six months before.
Dara, who is the founder of successful business DH Liberty, shared snaps from the conference she spoke at in Thailand on Instagram.
In one picture she smiled at the camera with a crowd of people behind her, and another she shared images of the Hilton Hotel she was staying at.
In another post shared she pointed out that she was up at 6am and had escaped jet-lag and was back in London.
Minutes after news broke of her ex’s engagement, Dara posted a ‘thank you’ to Harmonies Magazine for including her interior work for DH Liberty in their pages.
She then went on to post another interview to her Instagram Stories of another interview from Geaves on interior design trends.
The mother-of-one also shared a post to her page of an interview and photoshoot, writing in the caption: ‘How can we create vertical sustainable cities? West looking at Eastern influences.’
Dara had been sharing updates on a recent business trip to Thailand where she spoke at a conference and pointed out that she was up at 6am and had escaped jet-lag
Moments after the engagement was announced the interior designer continued sharing posts about her work from her company DH Liberty
Dara posted news of another interview she had given sharing her favourite interior design trends and how she approaches work for her clients
Princess Beatrice started dating the Italian property developer back in October last year after they both attended Princess Eugenie’s wedding, of who he is already a friend of.
Edoardo then made his first official public appearance with Beatrice in March at the National Portrait Gallery gala, where they were joined by the Duchess of Cambridge.
He also joined Beatrice, at Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston’s royal wedding in May.
The pair are believed to have known each other for years and Beatrice attended the funeral of Edoardo’s stepfather, Christopher Shale, who died at of a heart attack at Glastonbury in 2011 and was a close friend of David Cameron.
After their friendship developed into a romance, Beatrice was understood to have introduced Edoardo, whose father is Count Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi, as her ‘boyfriend’ to the Duke and Duchess of York.
Dara was in Thailand yesterday speaking at a conference before flying back into London and getting straight back to work
The Daily Mail reported that Edo and Dara continued to live together for weeks after he began a relationship with the Queen’s granddaughter at the October 12 nuptials.
However according to Dara’s mother Lily, her daughter left Edo’s flat and was staying with a close friend, sleeping on the sofa, while looking for an apartment.
Dara and Edo – who was educated at Radley School followed by Edinburgh University – are believed to have met in London through mutual friends in the beginning of 2015.
The pair’s social media accounts reflected a glamorous life of international travel until their son was born in 2016.
Pictured: Princess Beatrice and her boyfriend Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi arriving at the Ellie Goulding and Caspar Jopling wedding at York Minster
But just a few years later the couple had ended their relationship much to the surprise of Dara’s mother, who lives in Florida.
She told the Daily Mail last year after their split that she had no idea her daughter and Edo were no longer together until she was told by her elder daughter, Erin.
‘I think Dara was hiding it from me,’ said Lily, 69, whose husband Po-Tien, 80, is a retired scientist with the American space agency Nasa. ‘She didn’t want me to be sad. I am shocked.’
It’s believed that Dara and Edo split six months before he started his romance with Beatrice, according to a close friend.
A palace aide who has known the princess all her life also observed: ‘She would never allow herself to break into another couple’s happiness, especially if there was a small child.’
Mail Online have reached out to Miss Huang for comment.
