AS we’ve seen this week, photographs of baby Princess Charlotte, the most adored baby in the UK, are a rare commodity. But that’s certainly not the case for her glamorous cousin Kitty.
Lady Kitty Spencer is the 24-year-old dubbed “the UK’s hottest royal” who’s steaming
up the internet with her Instagram bikini shots and racy cover of Tatlermagazine. A source in London says “aristocratic eyebrows have been raised” over Kitty’s attention-grabbing behaviour.
She made headlines in Australia last month for bringing a royal touch to the Birdcage, where she was a special guest for the Spring Racing Carnival.
And while the niece of the late Princess Diana descends from a blue-blood clan dating all the way back to the Tudor era, a Downton Abbey-esq twist of fate means she has no claim to her family’s $210 million fortune. Here’s why.
Lady Kitty’s Instagram feed is full of exotic locations.
TECHNICALLY, SHE’S NOT REALLY ROYAL
While Lady Kitty — her real name, by the way, and not short for something more regal — sounds important, she’s merely a member of the British aristocracy and not actually in line for the throne. Her father, Charles, the 9th Earl of Spencer, was the brother of the late Princess Diana, making Kitty a first cousin to Princes William and Harry. She’s said to be on good terms with her fabulously famous cousins, but not a part of their “inner circle.” She upped the va-va-voom factor of William’s wedding to Kate Middleton by wearing a skin-tight Victoria Beckham dress and a whopper of a fascinator atop her head.
Lady Kitty at a Veuve Clicquot party in London. Picture by Rex Features/Splash
HER MUM WAS AN ADDICT
Kitty was raised in South Africa along with her younger siblings — Eliza, Amelia and Louis — by their mother, Victoria Lockwood. The first wife of the Earl of Spencer, Lockwood is a model who has publicly copped to past alcohol and drug problems, as well as struggles with anorexia. Now working as an addiction counsellor, Lockwood once told Hello! magazine: “I attend recovery meetings every week and I will do so for the rest of my life.”
Kitty has followed in her mother’s career footsteps, being signed up by Storm Models — the agency that’s also home to Kate Moss — which signed her up.
Kitty with father and her aunt, the late Princess Diana.
A young Kitty with parents.
SHE’S GETTING SCREWED OUT OF HER INHERITANCE
Though she is the eldest of her father’s children, because of a controversial succession system — called primogeniture — Kitty will not inherit her family’s estate due to the fact that she’s a girl. Rather, the 13,000-acre spread, which has been in the family since 1505, will go to her younger brother, Louis.
Despite her title (and seemingly endless holidays, seen here in Bondi in November 2015) she does work.
SHE’S NO LADY OF LEISURE
Given the fact that her Instagram is full of pics of her frolicking in Sydney, Ibiza, St-Tropez, Milan, Florence, Capri, Melbourne and Cape Town, you’d be forgiven for assuming Lady Kitty’s a trust-funder without a day job. But the graduate of the University of Cape Town and Regent’s University London works for the charity Give Us Time, which arranges holidays for soldiers who are struggling to reconnect with their families after active service.
Kitty recently ended a year-long relationship with deep-pocketed businessman Niccolo Barattieri di San Pietro, who is 20 years her senior. She has claimed in interviews that her exes are among her “best friends.” Though she was seen last week cozying up to Australian weatherman James Tobin, 35, on Bondi Beach, her friends reportedly maintain she is still single.
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