Boasson and Eggler St. Petersburg Nevsky 24. on Wikimedia

Heavy is the head that wears the crown—especially when there's a curse hanging over it! While royal life may seem like something right out of a storybook, there are plenty of stories to prove that being born into the lap of luxury can be anything but a fairytale. Or, at least, something from one of the Brothers Grimm's twisted tales.

In exploring cursed royal families, we've had to narrow down our criteria somewhat; there are a lot more royal curses than you would think! We've excluded curses that were seemingly broken such as the Wadiyar family's curse to bear no children—finally ended in 2017! As well as curses that have little documentation, such as the alleged curse of Portugal's House of Braganza.

Unlucky In Love

Robert LeRoy Knudsen on Wikimedia

The Grimaldi family of Monaco is the longest-ruling royal family in all Europe; unfortunately, they're also one of the unluckiest. The mythical origins of this curse date back to Rainier I, the first ruler of Monaco. After abducting a Flemish woman int he 13th century, Rainier and his descendants to never find happiness in marriage.

For the next 800 years, the Grimaldis have been plagued by adultery, infertility, and divorce. Some highlights—if you can call them that—include Louis I's wife running off with the King of France, Princess Caroline's three unsuccessful marriages, and reigning Prince Albert's numerous paternity suits.

Not even the most famous Grimaldi love story of all, that of Rainier III and Grace Kelly, was immune to the curse. While Rainier and Grace sold their marriage as a great love story, the reality was far from it. Rainier had numerous affairs while Grace struggled with depression.

Bad Blood

Boasson and Eggler St. Petersburg Nevsky 24. on Wikimedia

This next curse spans not only decades but also families and countries, eventually leading to the fall of an empire. Today, people with hemophilia can live full and healthy lives; two hundred years ago, it was a descendants. Europe, one big inbred family, could trace strains of hemophilia to Queen Victoria, who married her children off to other royal families.

While women can carry the gene for hemophilia, it primarily affects men, which is inconvenient when many royal families only allow men to rule. Victoria's youngest son, Leopold, succumbed to the disease at age 30, while her daughters passed it among the royal families of Spain, Germany and Russia. When a simple paper cut could prove fatal, princes rarely lived to inherit their thrones.

The most infamous case of royal hemophilia was Alexei Romanov, the last prince of Russia. Alexei inherited hemophilia from his mother, nearly bleeding out after his umbilical cord was cut. Desperate, his family relied on folk healer Rasputin to stop the disease; unfortunately, Rasputin could neither clot Alexei's blood nor prevent the entire family's murder.

A Treacherous Tiara

Franz Backofen on Wikimedia

Sometimes, the most beautiful jewels cover up secrets soaked in blood, as is the case with the Strawberry Lead Tiara of the house of Hesse and by Rhine. The tiara was designed by Prince Albert for his daughter, Alice on her wedding day. Unfortunately, Albert never got to see his daughter wear the crown as he suddenly succumbed to typhoid before the wedding.

17 years to the day after her father died, Alice got sick while nursing her family through diphtheria, dying at just 35. Skip forward a few generations to princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark, Prince Philip's sister. She, along with her family and friends were killed in a plane crash in 1937.

The Strawberry Leaf Tiara, which Cecilie had been planning to wear to her brother's wedding, survived the crash unscathed. The wedding went off anyway, though the happy couple bore no children. Today, the Strawberry Leaf Tiara is locked up lest it strike again!