#SlayQueen — The Prince of Italy Is Stepping Aside To Let His 19-Year-Old Instagram Model Daughter Take The Throne
NY POST — Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy is ready to give up his title in honor of a more modern approach to the monarchy.
The Italian prince confirmed to Fox News Digital that he plans to renounce his claim to the throne for his daughter, Princess Vittoria.
Some big news has come across our Foreign Affairs desk, which is definitely a real thing that we have here: Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Italy has announced his intentions to abdicate the throne of Italy so that his college-aged Instagram Model daughter can become queen and thus de facto head of the ruling Savoy family dynasty.
First, allow me to clarify something important: when I say things like "throne" and "ruling," I am speaking metaphorically. Since it is not 1946 and there is no such thing as the Kingdom of Italy, there is also no such thing as a throne of Italy. Consequently, the person metaphorically sitting on this metaphorical throne wields absolutely no power whatsoever, not in any sense of the word, and thus has no ability to "rule" anything, really. Not since the end of World War II at least, when Italy fired King Emmanuel and abolished the monarchy completely — you could say "for cause": the King's enabling of Fascism and support of Mussolini personally, his silence as Il Duce ratcheted up the brutal repression and murder, and his refusal to get rid of or even rein in the fat little dictator as his army was getting mollywhopped all over Europe with humiliating loss after humiliating loss led to him being the most despised man in the country by 1941. Emmanuel and the Savoys were stripped of their palaces and Scrooge McDuck gold coin pools and forced into exile — they weren't even allowed back into the country until 2002 like, to stand quietly, let alone rule anything. So yes, a far cry from the levers of power.
Absolutely none of those facts however have stopped the House of Savoy from doing their damn thing. A total lack of any real-life power hasn't stopped the British monarchy from drawing millions of viewers to their weddings and funerals and wall-to-wall media coverage and Oprah interviews for their princes and princesses. Why shouldn't the Italians get to play make-believe too?
Which brings us to Prince Emanuele and his big announcement. Two years ago Emanuele's father, the 86-year-old head of the family, set the stage for his granddaughter (and got some great #MeToo-era PR) by abolishing the ancient "Salic Law," the centuries-old law that said only men in the family can rule. With the path clear legally, the Prince is now stepping aside to make it official — after thousands of years of royal tradition, the halls of power are finally getting what the modern world has been clamoring for: an Instagram Model Queen.
Princess Vittoria of Savoy — hashtag Slay Queen, literally.
This does of course beg the question: why? For what reason is the heir to the (nonexistent) throne, with a father virtually tiptoeing the line between life and death, giving it all up for his daughter, when he's young and healthy and has plenty of juice in the tank? I mean the guy doesn't NOT like his position — he owns a restaurant in LA called "The Prince of Italy."
It doesn't seem to be because of experience or intellectual firepower1 — Vittoria is a 19-year-old Instagram Model majoring in art history. (1As an English major, it is perfectly acceptable for me to make fun of art majors, as it is literally the only major that is less useful and more bullshit than mine. It's kind of like an unwritten rule, like not bunting to break up a no-hitter — English majors may condescend to art majors every now and then, solely to keep their last speck of self-confidence in tact.)
According to Prince Emanuele, the reason is this — and I'm dead serious: because Gen Z is the generation best positioned to solve the world's problems.
“We are in a world where there are a lot of changes, a lot of quick changes, and I really like the approach that today the younger generation can [take on] uncertain matters,” said the patriarch. “I do not want to, let’s say, block my daughter until I become very old and perhaps take some wonderful things [away from her] that she could do.”
“I will, with great pleasure, step down and let her take on the role, which I’m sure she will do better than me… It’s important that the younger generation have a chance to put new, modern ideas into practice,” Filiberto added.
“… She, like many young people, wants to make things better in our world,” he continued. “Perhaps someone like Greta Thunberg helped [other young people] to do so. She awoke their awareness of what was happening around the world. And I think younger people are much more reactive than we old people can be. Younger people are much more concerned about our world.”
"She loves art history, she wants to open a gallery, she wants to work with young artists. … When I feel she is ready, [I would be] very pleased to do a step behind and let her take the role of chief of the royal family in Italy.”
Remember at the beginning of the blog when I talked about how the Italian monarchy is actually fake and has no real power to affect the world in any way whatsoever? Thank GOD.
Oh, and one last point, going forward: do not call the model on Instagram an Instagram Model.
“She always gets very cross when the newspapers call her ‘Influential Princess’ or ‘Instagram Star,’” he said. “She always says, ‘No, I’m studying political science and art.’ And it’s true that young people, young girls like to take pictures and things like that. She does some modeling and collaborations with brands. But … if you can use Instagram, TikTok, or whatever to bring awareness … it’s something beautiful. And why not? [Social media] is important today. It’s also a responsibility to have a large following because you can really connect with people.”
Obsessing over changing the world despite a lack of any real-world knowledge, self-importance, and thirst traps — truly a Gen Z Queen.
For anyone who wants to stick around, welcome to a bonus Friday History Corner — since we're on the topic of abdication, today we're taking a look at probably the most famous/infamous example of a royal abandoning the throne and the duties of the monarchy: Edward VIII of England, or as I like to call him, Nazi Eddie.
Edward VIII, King of England
Nicknames: Duke of Windsor; Nazi Eddie
Reign Began: January 20, 1936
Abdication: December 10, 1936
Reason for Abdication: 💞 Love 💞.
In 1936 Eddie became the first British monarch to abdicate voluntarily, after the Prime Minister, Archbishop of Cantebury, and British Cabinet told him he would not be allowed to marry his gilfriend, the American Wallis Simpson, because she was a divorceé — remarriage after divorce was "morally unacceptable" to the Church of England, and the King was the head of the Church.
As much as he loved power and lording it over all the little people, he loved love just a little bit more: he refused to even consider breaking off the relationship, even just for public show.
No amount of power in the world was worth it without his sweetheart by his side.
It is without question that Simpson was the love of Edward's life — but his heart was so big, there was room enough for two: the second love of Edward's life was Adolf Hitler.
Edward was a well-known Nazi sympathizer and Hitler fanboy; he took a trip to Nazi Germany, just for fun, in 1937 and was promptly pictured giving a full-on heil Hitler salute. Almost immediately as war began, he was believed to have leaked Allied plans for the defense of Belgium to the Germans, which he denied with a firm "nein!" He gave a fawning interview to an American magazine about Hitler and "advised" President Roosevelt to make peace with "the right and logical leader of Germany" — there were so many intelligence pickups of Edward's dealing with the Nazis that he was constantly under surveillance; M15 sent an agent to secretly waltz around Germany retrieving all the letters that were sent back and forth between the two.
There were at least two top-secret German war plans that centered on the Duke: Operation Sea Lion, an invasion of the UK that would install Edward as the puppet head of a Fascist state, and Operation Willi, which would stage his kidnapping to bring him to Spain and discuss the plot. When Allied intelligence dug up Nazi documents in postwar Germany known as the "Marburg Files," it was reported that "at least 60" contained letters between Edward and the Nazi high command; when Churchill described them to King George, he ordered them suppressed and "NEVER" released to the public — allegedly one of the letters featured Edward encouraging Hitler to conduct "relentless bombing attacks" on the UK to force them into submission to Nazi rule.
And, finally, just to show that Edward wasn't the only one desperately in love and prove her loyalty, Wallis herself reciprocated her husband's passion for the Nazis — literally: she fucked Ribbentrop, Hitler's ambassador to London, and, according to the FBI, stayed in "constant" contact with him to "frequently" leak information and documents.
To be fair Edward denied all of this — all we have to go on is his comment to a journalist that World War 2 was caused by the British government treating Mussolini poorly "…and of course Roosevelt and the Jews," and his remark to his best friend in 1960 (give or take 15 years since the Holocaust became public knowledge) that he "never thought Hitler was such a bad chap."
So I guess we can never be sure, whether England and their judgy divorce attitudes lost a truly great man and ruler, or a literal Nazi sock-puppet for Hitler to shove his hand up his ass and use him for his fantasy of lebensraum.
story via Samantha Ibrahim (New York Post) & Stephanie Nolasco, Tracy Wright (Fox News)