Princess Antoinette of Monaco Princess Antoinette, Baroness of Massy (Antoinette Louise Alberte Suzanne Grimaldi; 28 December 1920 – 18 March 2011) was the elder sister of Prince Rainier III. Her parents were Count Pierre de Polignac and Charlotte, Hereditary Princess of Monaco and Duchess of Valentinois.
Princess Antoinette had a long-term liaison with Alexandre-Athenase Noghès, a Monegasque-born attorney and international tennis champion.. The couple had three children born out-of-wedlock who were legitimated by their parents' subsequent marriage (on December 4, 1951) and, henceforth, included in the line of succession to the Monegasque Throne until the death of Prince Rainier III, in 2005 .Elizabeth Ann de Massy (1947–2020), Christian Louis de Massy (born 1949), and Christine Alix de Massy (1951–1989 Her issue by Sovereign Ordinance of November 15, 1951, bear however the patronymic name of « de Massy »
Princess Antoinette and Alexandre-Athenase Noghès subsequently married at the Monaco consulate in Genoa on 4 December 1951 (her first, his second) and divorced in 1954.
On 15 November 1951, Antoinette was created Baroness of Massy (Baronne de Massy). Her children were named Grimaldi at birth and subsequently had their names changed to de Massy.
She married her second husband, Dr. Jean-Charles Rey (Monaco, 22 October 1914 – Monaco, 17 September 1994), president of the Conseil National (the Parlement of Monaco) in The Hague on 2 December 1961 and they divorced in 1974.
Her third and last husband was John Brian Gilpin (Southsea, Hampshire, 10 February 1930 – London, 5 September 1983), a British ballet dancer, whom she married in Monaco on 28 July 1983. He died suddenly six weeks later.
Having divorced Noghès, she and her lover Jean-Charles Rey hatched a plan to depose her brother Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, and declare herself regent on the basis of having a son who would one day inherit the throne.
However Rainier's marriage to Grace Kelly in 1956 effectively scuttled Antoinette's plans. She was removed from the Palace by her sister-in-law, Princess Grace, and thereafter was estranged from the princely family for many years.
She was known to be somewhat eccentric.Having been banished from Monaco in the late 1950s, she lived down the coast from Monaco at Èze, with a large collection of dogs and cats.She was the president of Monaco's Society for the Protection of Animals and a patron of the UK-based Battersea Dogs and Cats Home.
Upon the accession of Albert II in 2005, Antoinette and her descendants lost their place in the line of succession to the Monegasque throne, which is limited to the current sovereign's descendants, siblings, and siblings' descendants.
The Princess Antoinette Park in Monaco's La Condamine district was named in her honour.
On 18 March 2011 Princess Antoinette died at The Princess Grace Hospital Centre, aged 90.Her funeral took place on 24 March 2011. She is buried in the Chapel of Peace in Monaco beside her parents, her daughters Elizabeth-Ann and Christine-Alix, her last husband John Brian Gilpin and her nephew by marriage, Stefano Casiraghi.