Maria Singh, born Princess Maria Galitzine, passed away earlier this month after suffering a “sudden” health scare. She was 31 years old.
The fourth daughter of Prince Piotr Galitzine and Princess Maria-Anna Galitzine died from a cardiac aneurysm on May 4, just one week before what would have been her 32nd birthday. She was laid to rest at a local Houston cemetery on May 8.
According to an obituary published in the Houston Chronicle, Singh was born in Luxembourg in 1988 and later moved to Russia with her family. She was a descendant of Archduke Rudolf of Austria, the youngest son of Emperor Charles I of Austria. Rudolf worked as a Wall Street junior executive and a bank director before his death in May 2010. He was married twice and had four children, the eldest of whom was Singh’s mother, born Archduchess Maria of Austria.
After attending school in Moscow, the princess attended the College of Art & Design in Belgium with hopes of becoming an interior designer and furnisher. She worked in cities all over the world following her graduation, later settling down in Houston, where she married renowned chef Rishi Roop Singh. The couple tied the knot in September 2017 and welcomed their son, Maxim, the following February.
While Maria appeared to detach herself from her royal background, her sister Tatiana Galitzine Sierra, who also moved to Texas, spoke in detail about her life as a modern European royal with a local Houston publication following her wedding in February 2018.
“My life is completely normal unless we are invited to royal weddings. My mail sometimes says ‘Princess Tatiana,'” Tatiana explained. “What was weird was when I went from ‘Princess’ to ‘Mrs.’ I had been a princess all my life.”
Maria is survived by her parents, husband and son, lovingly dubbed “the apple of her eye” in her obituary. Along with Tatiana, she had four other siblings: Princess Xenia Petrovna Galitzine, Princess Alexandra Petrovna Galitzine, Prince Dimitri Petrovich Galitzine and Prince Ionn Teimouraz Petrovich Galitzine.
