On his 18th birthday, Gabriel announced his plans to travel the world before heading to university. After a year of globetrotting, he fell in love with New Zealand’s lush landscape, where he worked on broadening his skills before hitting the books. His mother, Tessy Antony de Nassau, was the inspiration for the trip after her own love affair with the country. She told a local publication that New Zealand had changed the trajectory of her life, ‘Nothing will ever be the same. I have found a home away from home.’ Tessy joined the Kiwis on a solo trip following an acrimonious divorce from Gabriel’s father, Prince Louis of Luxembourg.
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The couple faced scrutiny from the outset of their union, welcoming their first son Gabriel out of wedlock, before marrying a year later. Public disapproval of her marriage and then divorce placed a strain on her mental health, with Tessy later revealing: ‘Divorce was one of the most painful things I have gone through. I lost 98 per cent of my friends.’
Despite the public heartbreak, she found love once again in her now husband Frank Floessel, a Swiss businessman. In 2021, the former royal married in an intimate ceremony, with the couple going on to welcome a son together.