Lemondrop

So, this week a pretty young girl who runs in royal circles made headlines again. No, not the one waiting for a proposal from her prince.

This was Pauline Ducruet -- daughter of Princess Stephanie of Monaco, and granddaughter of Grace Kelly -- who's hoping for a different sort of bling someday: her own Olympic medal.

Turns out the competitive diver wowed crowds at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in Singapore this week with her 1-1/2-somersault pike, making us green with envy.

Pretty? Princess? Athletic prowess? It's enough to make us haters.

And, at first blush you'd think, damn, girl's got everything. But dig a little deeper, and the lives of young royals aren't always are never that rosy. So, not that it's motivated by schadenfreude or anything, but Lemondrop took a closer look at the lives of a dozen modern-day princesses. Our goal? To show you why being born a commoner ain't all that awful.

First up, Pauline, aka Miss Somersault-Pike herself ...

Name: Pauline Ducruet
Official title: n/a, but she's eighth in line to the throne
Spouse and children: Single! This teen royal is only 16, but she's the daughter of Princess Stephanie of Monaco, granddaughter of (Princess) Grace Kelly, niece of Prince Albert II, and that's not to mention her dad (now divorced from her mom), Paul Ducruet, a former palace bodyguard. Quel royal color.
Age: 16
Profession: Student, royal, Olympic hopeful
The skinny: Sports, not just royal hijinks, run in her blood. Her great-grandfather, John Kelly -- father of her late grandmother, Princess Grace -- won three Olympic gold medals for rowing in the 1920s. And her Uncle Albert bobsledded in five Winter Games. She and her father and brother took part in a French reality show -- "La Ferme Célébrités" / "The Celebrity Farm" -- in 2005. We're sure they meant "farm" in a flattering way.
If life were a fairy tale: She'd star in ... "The Princess Diaries." Part average teenager, part princess of royal descent -- with enough family dysfunction to fill several pink, padlocked journals.
Moral of her royal story: Girlfriend's got a lot to prove -- divorced parents, uber-pedigreed kin. If you think just being a teenager is tough, imagine trying to make your mark in a family like hers.

Name: Catherine Elizabeth Middleton, aka "Wait-y Katie"
Official title: None ... yet
Spouse & children: Her boyfriend is HRH Prince William, second in line to the U.K. throne. At least we think. Yesterday the headlines declared they were officially curtains again.
Age: 28
Profession: Worked as an accessories buyer at the clothing chain Jigsaw, the British answer to Club Monaco. Currently dabbling in photography and helping promote her younger brother's bakery.
The skinny: The ever-patient Middleton has earned the sobriquet "Waity Katie" from the British press for her seemingly endless courtship. Prince William's posher friends have a nastier slang for middle-class Kate: DTM or Doors to Manual, a nod to the original career of her socially ambitious, stewardess mother, Carole. (Carole does Kate few favors, like the time she breached protocol horridly by chewing gum throughout William's graduation from military school.) Kate only met her prince because Wills ditched the Oxbridge education usually expected of royals and instead headed for St. Andrews, the party school for the posh where Middleton was waiting for him.
If life were a fairy tale: She'd be Sleeping Beauty. Though SB's century-long wait for her prince dwarfs Middleton's almost-decade of patience.
Moral of her royal story: Not even princess-hopefuls always get the ring. And not getting it with all eyes on you is, as the Brits are fond of saying, bloody awful.

Name: Charlotte Marie Pomeline Casiraghi
Official title: n/a
Spouse & children: Her London-based hunky hipster boyfriend is the art dealer Alex Dellal, son of a billionaire property developer.
Age: 23
Profession: Princess Grace's gorgeous granddaughter has dabbled in journalism -- she co-wrote a feature about Christian Louboutin during her internship at a London broadsheet -- but is currently an amateur showjumper and professional PYT along with her friend, Camilla Al Fayed, daughter of Harrods mogul, Mohamed Al Fayed.
The skinny: Charlotte's one of the few royals who looks and sounds like a Disney princess. Disarmingly beautiful (thank Grace Kelly's good genes), designer Karl Lagerfeld has said she reminds him of Brigitte Bardot. Nor is she a dumb brunette -- Charlotte can ride and fence, and she studied Latin for several years. But remember, ladies -- life serves everyone lemons: Her late father, Stefano, was an adrenaline-chasing industrialist killed in a speedboat crash when his daughter was just 4 years old.
If life were a fairy tale: Hell, her life is kind of a fairy tale, missing father figure and everything.
Moral of her royal story: Nothing -- not even a $9 million island of your own to flee to -- can make up for the pain of losing a parent.

Name: Mary Elizabeth Donaldson
Official title: Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat
Spouse & children: Frederick, Crown Prince of Denmark; two children -- their son was nicknamed the Kingeroo by the Aussie tabloids.
Age: 38
Profession: Back in her native Australia, the law grad worked in P.R. for ad firm Young & Rubicam. Before her marriage, while living in Denmark, she took a gig as a consultant for Microsoft.
The skinny: One day after work Mary was drinking, when she was introduced to a handsome, Harvard-educated businessman called Fred. He didn't mention the prince-and-first-in-line-to-the-Danish-throne thing -- or his reputation as a womanizing playboy. Initially, the Australian media carped about Donaldson's deference to her new royal family: She had to cede her citizenship, learn Danish and even forfeit access to her kids if the marriage didn't work out. But her P.R. background has served her well, and Mary's balanced her commitments to both countries, symbolized by the wedding bouquet she carried: Aussie eucalyptus woven with Danish native flowers. These days, she's Down Under's answer to Princess Di.
If life were a fairy tale: Plucked from obscurity, she's a kanga-loving Cinderella all the way.
Moral of her royal story: Even girls lucky enough to pick up their prince at happy hour have to contend with meddling mothers-in-law. The types who really do own thrones.

Name: Masako Owada
Official title: Crown Princess Masako
Spouse & children: Crown Prince Naruhito is first in line to Japan's so-called Chrysanthemum throne. He and Masako have one daughter, Aiko, who has been rumored to suffer from Asperger's syndrome -- and made global headlines after she claimed to have been badly bullied at her elite academy in central Tokyo.
Age: 47
Profession: Fluent in six languages (English, French, Russian, Spanish, German and Japanese) and educated at Harvard and Oxford universities, poor Masako was a diplomat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before succumbing to the pressures of Japanese royal life.
The skinny: Many feel it's impossible to pity any princess, but Masako is a heart-melting exception. A high-powered career woman who fell in love with a Japanese prince, she refused his marriage proposals three times before accepting and marrying 17 years ago. Maybe she had a premonition of how awful her life would be. The problem was her uncooperative womb. In a country where only boys can inherit the throne, after miscarrying in 1999, Masako produced a daughter to much public disapproval. Since then, nothing. The Imperial Household Agency, the Japanese royal family's ultra-conservative answer to the Department of Homeland Security, has even publicly called on her to spawn a boy or two in addition. Given such treatment, it's no wonder she's been struck down by such crippling depression (delicately dubbed "adjustment disorder" by the protocol-conscious Japanese). She's all but disappeared from public life.
If life were a fairy tale: The only real difference between Rapunzel and Masako, aside from the hair, is that at least Rapunzel escaped the tower.
Moral of her royal story: Prince or no prince, never give up a killer job for a guy who prefers you barefoot and pregnant.

Name: Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano
Official title: Letizia, Crown Princess of Asturias
Spouse & children: Felipe, Prince of Asturias, first in line to the Spanish throne; two daughters, Leonor and Sofia
Age: 37
Profession: A onetime TV journalist who reported on the 9/11 attacks from NYC and the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Letizia and her prince fell in love while she was covering an oil spill in 2003 that he was visiting in an official capacity.
The skinny: Seemingly ultra-conservative Spain proved relaxed when it came to the news that dashing royal prince Felipe was marrying a to-die-for divorcee. Maybe it was just relief that he didn't marry rumored former girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow. His mom, Queen Sofia, said, "All we ask (of our children) is that they marry someone nice and decent who looks after them." Letizia, equal parts Audrey Hepburn and Sofia Vergara, is a pert-bottomed clotheshorse who's rapidly becoming a tabloid fashion staple across Europe. Like Michelle O, she mixes homegrown designer goodies with Mango and Zara. Her dark and handsome husband is also tall enough that she can rock stilettos without worrying the way that Katie Holmes or Carla Bruni, both glamazons with midget husbands, must envy. The only blot on Letizia's fashion profile? The nip-tuckery to which she's admitted on her nose, allegedly to ease breathing problems.
If life were a fairy tale: She -- a once-innocent princess who's lived long enough to know a thing or two about "true love" -- is the stuff of "Enchanted."
Moral of her royal story: You can never rise above gossip. Between the plastic surgery rumors and the speculation about her past, it sounds more like she's starring in "Real Housewives of Madrid."

Name: Victoria Ingrid Alice Désirée Bernadotte
Official title: Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, Duchess of Västergötland
Spouse & children: In June, the sporty and tomboyish Vicky (she's a crack skier and horse rider) married Daniel Westling, a commoner from rural Sweden whom she met when he worked as her personal trainer.
Age: 32
Profession: A onetime intern at the United Nations in New York who also logged time at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C., Victoria's interest in diplomacy should serve her well when she becomes Sweden's fourth Queen Regnant. Currently, her duties are largely ceremonial. "The prospect of becoming queen is something I can't get out of my head," she has said. "I don't stop focusing on the job with which I've been entrusted."
The skinny: Victoria's another royal rumored to suffer from anorexia -- so much so that her parents packed her off to America at 21 to escape the spotlight back home. She's blossomed since then, becoming an endearing and much-loved monarch-in-waiting, even after falling for a man many dubbed a muscle-bound gold-digger. Indeed, she's set to become the country's first queen for hundreds of years, thanks to a nifty law from 1980 that downgraded her younger brother's priority and turned Vicky from spare to heir.
If life were a fairy tale: With a partner who's both burly and heavy-browed, she's Belle of "Beauty and the Beast."
Moral of her royal story: When a princess marries a pauper, the whole country gawks. It's like having everyone hate your boyfriend, to the nth power.

Name: Madeleine Thérèse Amelie Josephine Bernadotte
Official title: Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland
Spouse: She almost married long-term fiance Jonas Bergström; however, she called off the wedding in April.
Age: 29
Profession: TBD. A onetime art student, she mostly fills her days performing ribbon-cuttings and other royal duties, as well as working with UNICEF.
The skinny: Pretty, flirty Madeleine, the bubbly blonde to sister Vicky's smart brunette, was dubbed the "Party Princess" for her fun-loving ways. Just 11 days older than Prince William, sentimental royal watchers hoped in vain for a Swedish-British match. Now, even Maddy might be regretting she didn't try to elbow Kate Middleton aside. After getting engaged to her longtime boyfriend, a swashbuckling lawyer named Jonas Bergström after a seven-year courtship, she watched as a local National Enquirer–like magazine dug up the sordid details of a one-night stand he'd enjoyed with a buxom handball star–turned-student, Tora Uppström Berg, from nearby Norway. It wasn't long before broken-hearted Madeleine had axed her cheating fiance and flown to NYC to hide out, doing an Elin in reverse. Ironically, conservative Swedes often held up Bergström as an example of an ideal royal spouse, as opposed to Victoria's personal trainer–plus-one.
If life were a fairy tale: Pert and peppy, a popular blonde who suffered humiliating infidelities, she'd have much to discuss with "Wicked"'s Glinda the Good Witch.
Moral of her royal story: Alas, a crown is not an invisibility cloak. Infidelity, sibling rivalry -- you still deal with it all, and as a princess, you're asked to do so with a pasted smile.

Name: Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby
Official title: Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway
Spouse & children: She has a son and daughter by her husband of almost 10 years, Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, who threatened to renounce the throne if he wasn't allowed to marry her by the conservative factions around the Oslo court. The reason for the ruckus? Her eldest child, Marcus, who was fathered by her former boyfriend, a convicted drug-dealer.
Age: 36
Profession: After the trauma she caused in Norway, some might assume she was an unpaid agent of the Republican movement: Support for the royals hit an all-time low among the public in 2002 after their wedding. In fact, MM was a part-time waitress who'd flunked out of college.
The skinny: It didn't matter in a country like Norway, where almost half of all kids are born to unmarried couples, that icy, almost-Hitchcockian blonde Mette had a toddler when she latched onto the heir to the throne. What didn't help was that she had a reputation on the club scene in Oslo and moved in with Haakon before they were engaged. (In her position, wouldn't anyone?) Thankfully, she had the smarts to hire a savvy P.R. consultant who shipped her out onto national TV, Princess Di–style, to weepingly apologize for her wild past while Haakon looked on, adoringly.
If life were a fairy tale: Like the girl who proved she was a princess by feeling a pea through dozens of mattresses, MM showed her true colors when she stood by her man.
Moral of her royal story: Most of us can wipe our wild years clean and start fresh on Facebook. It's tougher if you marry into the upper-upper crust.

Name: Máxima Zorreguieta
Official title: Princess Máxima of the Netherlands
Spouse & children: Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange and heir to the Dutch throne, and three daughters including Catharina-Amalia, the 6-year-old future queen of Holland.
Age: 39
Profession: This native Argentinian worked as an investment banker back home as well as logging time juggling the markets in New York and Europe.
The skinny: It was a risk his mother must have lost sleep over -- Queen Beatrix's heir, Willem-Alexander, affectionately nicknamed the "Prince of Fun," was seen by many as worryingly dumb. His taste in women proved eccentric, as one former girlfriend was axed on palace orders after it was discovered she was earning pocket money as a phone-sex operator. After that, he settled on a woman whose scandal-ridden past was even worse: Maxima's dad, Jorge, had been a minister during the bloody dictatorship of General Videla from 1976–83 (though he was cleared of any wrongdoing). Exasperated, Queen Beatrix apparently refused to speak to her son for several months after he proposed to Maxima. The marriage went ahead only after the couple acquiesced to the queen's conditions: Queen B could decree what the bride and her friends would wear and her dad would stay away, watching his daughter marry only on TV. Add a few judicious photo ops with historic windmills, and Maxima became a princess at last.
If life were a fairy tale: Gorgeous on the outside but with an awkward secret she didn't know how to divulge? Maxima is a dead ringer for "Shrek"'s Princess Fiona.
Moral of her royal story: If you get your kicks in the royal sandbox, it's almost guaranteed they'll dig up your dirt.

Name: Haya Bint Al Hussein
Official title: Her Royal Highness Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein of Jordan, Sheikha of Dubai
Spouse & children: She is the junior wife of Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who's likely the richest spouse on the list, clocking a $12 billion fortune. Between his wives, he has 19 officially acknowledged children, of whom Haya's 2-year-old daughter is the youngest.
Age: 36
Profession: Why work when your husband has that many zeros to keep you company? But the Oxford-educated brainiac wouldn't just sit at home counting her billions. Like her husband, she's an avid equestrian and spends plenty of her time riding and having competed at Sydney's Olympic games as part of Jordan's team.
The skinny: Haya had a tough start to her childhood when her immensely popular and beautiful mom, Queen Alia, was killed in a copter crash at only 28. Her dad, the king, went on to wed American Lisa Halaby, now better known as Queen Noor. It was riding that saved the little girl from a lonely but wealthy life, though showjumping went against protocol: Her dad nicknamed her "The Trucker," since she's the only Jordanian woman ever to hold a HGV license (so she can drive horse boxes).
If life were a fairy tale: This Middle Eastern beauty is a real-life, rule-breaking, boundary-pushing Princess Jasmine.
Moral of her royal story: A motherless tomboy raised by a foreign stepmom? Don't tell us being born with a silver spoon means all your problems melt away.