The Untold Truth Of Princess Maria Galitzine
Maria Singh, neé Princess Maria Galitzine (pictured above left), died on May 4, 2020, at age 31 from a sudden cardiac aneurysm, an obituary published in the Houston Chronicle confirmed. She leaves behind her husband, chef Rishi Roop Singh (pictured above right), and their son, Maxim, who was born in 2018. Maxim was "the apple of her eye," the obituary stated.
Maria was born in Luxembourg to Prince Piotr Galitzine and Princess Maria Anna Galitzine and had five siblings: Princess Tatiana, Xenia Galitzine de Matta, Princess Alexandra, Prince Dmitri, and Prince Ioann, per E! News.
The late princess's mother is the daughter of Archduke Rudolf of Austria, who was the youngest son of Emperor Charles I of Austria and Empress Zita of Bourbon-Parma, and her father is a Russian aristocrat, according to a Papercity Magazine profile about Princess Tatiana. Maria is also the "great-granddaughter of the last emperor and empress of Austria and a descendant of the House of Habsburg that ruled parts of Europe for almost 600 years," The Moscow Times reported.
Despite Maria's impressive lineage, her background wasn't typical compared to other royals.
Princess Maria Galitzine's upbringing was diverse
Five years after her birth in 1988, Maria Singh's family moved from Luxembourg to Russia, where she was a student at the German School of Moscow. After graduation, she moved to Belgium to attend the CAD school, an "international college of design," per the institution's website. She also lived in Brussels and Chicago before finally settling down in Houston, where she married Rishi Roop Singh (pictured above) in 2017. Maria specialized in "interior design and furnishing," as her obituary in the Houston Chronicle stated.
As for Maria's family history, her parents met at a bar in New York, as her older sister, Princess Tatiana, relayed to Papercity Magazine. Prince Piotr Galitzine initially moved the family to California, where he "had formed a startup with an MIT professor." The clan then picked up for Luxembourg to "expand the company," before moving to Russia after the fall of communism. "At home, my father speaks Russian to us, the girls speak French to each other, and the boys speak German," Tatiana said about the siblings' diverse upbringing.
In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Tatiana revealed that she and Maria didn't grow up like typical royals (think Prince William and Prince Harry). "My life is completely normal unless we are invited to royal weddings," she explained.
"As children, every summer, we had to do charity work," Tatiana told the Houston Chronicle in a follow-up chat. "It was as normal for us as brushing our teeth."