When Princess Mabel was nine years old, her father drowned. 34 years later, in August 2012, her great love Prince Friso died – King Willem-Alexander’s brother. For ten years she has had to raise their daughters alone and fight her way back to life.
A sad anniversary overshadows Princess Mabel’s 55th birthday this Friday, August 11, 2023. Ten years ago, on August 12, 2013, her great love Prince Friso, † 44, died a year and a half after his serious avalanche accident. Their two daughters, Countess Zaria, then 7 and now 17, and Countess Luana, then 8 and now 18, had to grow up without their beloved father, former Queen Beatrix, 85, who lost her middle son, King Willem-Alexander, 56 , his little brother. Ten years followed, full of further strokes of fate, but also bright moments that shaped the life of Princess Mabel of Orange-Nassau. But from the beginning.
Princess Mabel: An avalanche accident changed her life forever
On February 17, Prince Friso fell victim to an avalanche accident shortly after 12 noon. It happened while skiing near Lech in Austria. It took about 25 minutes for Princess Mabel’s husband to be rescued from the masses of snow. He had to be resuscitated for 50 minutes after a cardiac arrest. But the help came too late. This was announced a few days later, on February 24, 2012, by the treating doctor, Wolfgang Koller, at a press conference in the Innsbruck clinic.
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Prince Friso never recovered from massive brain damage
“The lack of oxygen has caused massive damage to the patient’s brain. It is currently not possible to say with certainty whether Prince Friso will ever regain consciousness. […] 50 minutes of resuscitation time is very, very long. You can also say: too long”, was the shocking diagnosis of the head of the traumatological intensive care unit. Friso could never recover from that. After a year and a half in a coma and brief hopes – he showed “signs of low consciousness”, shared the court in November 2012 with – Prince Friso dies on August 12, 2012 at Huis ten Bosch Castle in The Hague.
Mabel raised daughters alone in London
The death came unexpectedly for the family. Just hours before, Friso’s cousin, Prince Jaime of Bourbon-Parma, announced his wedding. Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima, 52, cancel their vacation in Greece. On August 16, Friso will be in the Dutch village Buried in Vuursche. From then on, Princess Mabel had to raise her daughters alone in the London borough of Notting Hill. The family lived there while Friso was alive, he worked for an investment bank and a technology company in the financial metropolis.
Brutal murder of her friend
Three years after her husband’s death, Mabel experienced another bereavement: her friend, British MP Jo Cox, was stabbed and shot in June 2016 at the age of 51.
The princess fights her way back to life
Despite all the fates, the princess has been trying to fight her way back to life since 2014. “Very slowly I notice that there are fewer days when the grief is overwhelming. There are small moments of happiness again,” she described her feelings in an interview with the Dutch daily De Volkskrant. Nevertheless, it was to take five years before Friso’s wife could say in 2018 that she had come back to life.
Return to Holland
At this point she also bought a 245 square meter holiday villa in Breukeleveen, the Netherlands, near Beatrix’s home, she wanted to spend more time at home again. Even in the years after Friso’s death, the royal family always stood by her. In an interview with the “Holland Herald”, the magazine of the airline KLM, Princess Mabel emphasized: “I would not make it without my two families, my own and that of my late husband.”
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Another low blow: Sister Nicoline makes cancer public
In November 2022, Mabel’s younger sister Nicoline Wisse Smit, 53, went public with her cancer on her website, where she usually reviews books. “The diagnosis of ‘metastatic cancer’ caused quite a stir and still does (quite often) today,” she wrote, speaking of having undergone radiation and chemotherapy at Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital. When exactly the disease broke out, what type of cancer it is and whether it is over is not known to this day. After all, she spoke of healing on Instagram at the beginning of August this year and appeared laughing.
And Princess Mabel is in the mood for a hearty laugh again. In early June, she rocked out with her now-grown-up daughter Zaria, 17, and her mother-in-law Princess Beatrix at the opening performance of the 76th Holland Festival at the Theater Amsterdam.
Sources used: tagesschau.de, royal-house.nl, holland-herald.com, nicolinewissesmit.nl, volkskrant.nl, instagram.com, Dana Press