Princess Michael of Kent (born Baroness Marie-Christine Anna Agnes Hedwig Ida von Reibnitz, 15 January 1945)[1] is a member of the British royal family who is of German, Austrian, Czech and Hungarian descent.

Princess Michael was born Freiin (Baroness) Marie-Christine Anna Agnes Hedwig Ida von Reibnitz,[2] on 15 January 1945, in Karlovy Vary in German-occupied Czechoslovakia, then officially Karlsbad in the German-populated Sudetenland, now in the Czech Republic.

She was born at the family estates of her Austrian maternal grandmother, Princess Hedwig von Windisch-Graetz (1878–1918), shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany and end of the Second World War in Europe.

On her father's side, Princess Michael is a descendant of the Burggrafen of Dohna, Herrand III von Trauttmansdorff and Nostitz family, who are also ancestors of Queen Elizabeth II.

[5][6] In response to the advances of the Red Army near the end of the war, the family abandoned their estates and moved to Bavaria, which was part of the American-occupied zone of Germany.

Prince and Princess Michael of Kent have two children:[2] Marie-Christine was linked romantically by the press to John Warner and tycoons Ward Hunt and Mikhail Kravchenko.

[17] In 1986, her first book Crowned in a Far Country: Portraits of Eight Royal Brides was published, after which she faced allegations of plagiarism and reached an out-of-court settlement with another author.

[7] From 2007 to 2011, the Princess served as president of Partridge Fine Art, a gallery in London's New Bond Street until it went into administration having suffered substantial multi-year losses.

Queen Elizabeth II had paid the rent for the apartment at a market rate of £120,000 annually from her own private funds with the couple paying the nominal amount of £70 per week.

This rent payment by the Queen is "in recognition of the Royal engagements and work for various charities which Prince and Princess Michael of Kent have undertaken at their own expense, and without any public funding", according to a statement released by the British Monarchy Media Centre.

[26] Princess Michael of Kent is a Roman Catholic, and attended several events during Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the United Kingdom in September 2010.

[28][29] On the last day of the Pope's visit, 19 September, she attended the open-air Mass of beatification for Cardinal John Henry Newman at Cofton Park, Birmingham.

[31] Previously, in November 2008, the Princess attended the translation of remains of Cardinal Newman at Birmingham Oratory along with other guests of honour, including Francis Campbell, HM Ambassador to the Holy See; the Lord Mayor of Birmingham and Lady Mayoress; Sir Ivor Roberts, President of Trinity College, Oxford, and formerly British Ambassador to Italy; and Sir Derek Morris, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford.

It was organised by the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), founded by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1995, in association with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), of which Prince Philip was formerly President.

[36] In an interview with a newspaper she reflected on her encounter with "a group of rappers", which in fact included the TV reporter A. J. Calloway as well as a banker, a lawyer, and a music mogul.

[37] In September 2005, she talked to Mazher Mahmood, a News of the World journalist posing as a fake sheikh and potential buyer for Nether Lypiatt Manor, Princess Michael and her husband's country home at the time.

Meghan Markle, later the Duchess of Sussex, a mixed-race American woman of African and European descent, and at the time the fiancée of Prince Harry, was present at the dinner.

[42] In April 2018, her daughter's former partner, Aatish Taseer, alleged that the Princess had owned a pair of black sheep that she named after Venus and Serena Williams.