The Queen’s cousin has been confirmed as the latest celebrity to sign up for E4 reality show The Big Celebrity Detox.
Princess Olga Romanoff, 72, who lives alone who lives alone at Provender, a 30-room 13th century home in Kent, is no stranger to reality TV – previously appearing on ITV’s Keeping Up With The Aristocrats, which offered an intimate look at the lives of four British upper-crust families.
She is the daughter of Tsar Nicholas II’s eldest nephew, Prince Andrew, who escaped Russia on a British warship in 1919. Tsar Nicholas II was the first cousin of King George V, Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather.
Despite her aristocratic heritage, the outspoken Princess has a no-nonsense attitude and prevoiusly said she was unsuited to royal life because: ‘I would rather shovel sh– than have to be very charming and dressed up on a daily basis.’
Princess Olga Romanoff, 72, is the latest royal relative to sign up for reality TV – she will be taking part in The Big Celebrity Detox, which was filming before The Queen’s death
Olga is the youngest child of Prince Andrei Alexandrovich of Russia from his second marriage to Nadine Sylvia Ada McDougall and is a descendant from the House of Romanov, related to the last Tsar of Russia.
Olga’s parents fled Russia during the revolution, a year after the Tsar Nicholas II and his family were executed by Bolsheviks revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky in Yekaterinbur on July 1918.
Through her mother is Nadine Sylvia Ada McDougall, Ms Romanoff is a descendant of William Paterson, who founded the Bank of England in 1694, and also of Henrik Borgström, who founded the Bank of Finland.
Olga, who takes the English spelling of her surname as opposed to the Russian ‘Romanov’ – was home-schooled before moving between London, Scotland and Kent and returning to the historic home of the 13th-century home Provender in 2000.
Princess Olga is the daughter of Tsar Nicholas II’s eldest nephew, Prince Andrew, who escaped Russia on a British warship in 1919. She is pictured in 1968
Princess Olga pictured at her 13th-century home Provender in Faversham Kent, when she was filming for a three part ITV series called Keeping Up With The Aristocrats
Provender was bought by her grandmother Constance Borgström in 1921 and is laden with portraits of her illustrious Russian relatives.
The Romanoff descendant now spends her time restoring her UK family home and rents the servants’ wing on AirBnB in order to make extra money.
It was reported that she was once considered a bride for her third cousin King Charles III – talking to Alan Titchmarsh on Love Your Weekend she said King Charles made a ‘narrow escape’ and she would have made a ‘terrible, terrible wife’ to the royal.
She admitted she had to clean up after her guests, doing their dishes and even changing the sheets, something she swore she would never do.
Princess Olga was also related to the Queen’s late husband, Prince Philip through his linage in the Greek royal family.
The late Queen’s cousin has always been an open book and has starred on Keeping Up With The Aristocrats in 2021 and Australian Princess in 2005 as well as done many TV interviews.
The Sun reported that Princess Olga will take part in the new show The Big Celebrity Detox which is centered around alternative therapies such as urine drinking.
Olga filmed for an ITV documentary marking The Queen’s 95th birthday called The Queen And Her Cousins With Alexander Armstrong in 2021
Olga’s father Prince Andrei was Tsar Nicholas II’s eldest nephew and Tsar Nicholas II was the first cousin of King George V, Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather. Princess Olga was also related to the Queen’s late husband, Prince Philip
A TV insider told The Sun: ‘She had no airs and graces and threw herself into all the different therapies, which included some stars having to down their own wee.’
The show seems to be emulating Extreme Celebrity Detox which was a reality television programme on Channel 4 back in 2005.
Olga is set to join Homes Under The Hammer presenter Martin Lewis and Chloe Veitch from Too Hot To Handle.
The E4 series doesn’t have a set date for release but it’s been rumoured that, much like the bushtucker trials in I’m A Celebrity, stars will be put to the test with some of the wackiest health trends.
On a previous episode of The Aristocrats on ITV earlier this year Olga, who is twice married and twice divorced, admitted she’s unlucky in love but does believe in the idea of a ‘perfect relationship’.
Olga set up her online dating profile on an episode of Keeping Up With The Aristocrats, a series that offers an intimate look at the lives of four British upper-crust families. Pictured, Olga setting up her online dating profile with daughter Alexandra
Olga lives at the medieval Provender House near Faversham, which she inherited 21 years ago upon the death of her mother (her father, Nicholas II’s nephew, had escaped to England)
Olga is the great-niece of Tsar Nicholas II. Her family settled in England after being exiled (pictured: A family tree of Ms Romanoff showing her ancestry date back to Tsar Nicholas II)
The divorcee also reveals she was once considered a match for her third cousin King Charles.
‘My mother always had delusions that she could get me married off to poor Prince Charles,’ she told daughter Alexandra.
‘Obviously that wasn’t going to happen because I was the wrong religion and a lot of other things. But other was determined that it was to happen. God knows why.
‘I would have been terrible for him. He definitely had a lucky escape!’
Reflecting on what she is looking for in a man, she says: ‘Tall, blond, thin’, like Prince Philip.
She continues: ‘The type of man I’ve always liked is a trained killer, ex-SAS, ex-Special Forces… I’ve always liked the idea of the perfect relationship and romance but I have a knack for picking the wrong people.’
Olga has no truck with the general perception of her moneyed class.
‘I’m not your ordinary princess,’ she says. ‘At home you’ll find me shovelling s***, sadly, not eating caviar.’
While Olga’s blood may be as blue as the Danube, she’s far more likely to be seen mucking out at her 13th-century home in Kent than quaffing Champagne.
Olga also reveals that her mother (pictured left) was once determined to marry her off to Prince Charles and jokes the royal had a ‘lucky escape’
‘Only children expect a princess in a tiara and a frilly dress,’ she says. ‘Adults might sometimes raise an eyebrow because I smell of horses and don’t wear make-up, but they’re too polite to say so.’
‘When I was a child, it seemed like there was a bottomless pit of money,’ she recalls.
‘And indeed there was until my grandmother died. Then my mother, poor woman, got into deep s**t and the debts just rose and rose and rose.
‘I inherited the house and I realised the house was literally falling down. ‘It’s still falling down, £2.5 million later,’ says Olga dryly. ‘I had to sell some of our Russian heirlooms to fund it.’
Appearing on Lorraine in 2021, she said that The Queen had the ‘right approach’ to public life, rather than royals partaking in high-profile interviews such as Harry and Meghan’s explosive chat with Oprah Winfrey.
The Russian royal added that being a princess ‘never had an impact on her’ and that she was ‘horrified’ when she read an article dubbing her a potential love match for her third-cousin the Prince of Wales in 1967.
Olga remembers a time when there was a large staff to keep the estate running saying she loves the garden but she ‘loved it more when we had people doing all this’
‘I was taught to sit down and shut up and never wash your dirty linen in public, whatever it happens to be,’ she said. ‘So I think the Queen does that right.’
Speaking of being considered a potential bride for Charles she went on: ‘Harpers & Queen, or Harpers as it was then, did an article on me being a potential bride.
‘But they also did about other foreign royalty, like the Swedes, the Luxembourgs, all princesses of that era in 1967 as possible suitable brides for old Prince Charles.
‘My mother did the blurb and I didn’t know anything about it until it came out and I was horrified’.
‘Did you not fancy the job?’ asked host Lorraine Kelly.
‘Not at all,’ she replied. ‘My mother said all these thing about me and I wasn’t allowed to speak for myself.’
Princess Olga said she was brought up in an ‘eccentric way’ and that being a royal never made much of a difference to her life.
Appearing on Lorraine, she said that the late monarch had the ‘right approach’ to public life, rather than royals partaking in high-profile interviews
‘[It] didn’t make any impact at all’, she said. ‘I was brought up in quite an eccentric way, with a governess and nannies and I was very chaperoned and everything.
‘So although I knew who my father was, it didn’t have an impact because you’re brought up with it and it doesn’t affect you.’
Last year Olga also spoke of her admiration for the ‘quite divine’ Prince Philip in an interview with the Telegraph.
She said: ‘I just think he’s wonderful because A, he’s very good-looking. B, he doesn’t take bullsh–. He says it how it is even if he gets into trouble.’
While she is a blood relative of the royal family, Olga said she wasn’t sure she considered the Windsors ‘cousins’, because she only met them a little as a young girl, and had too many cousins to count.
Speaking of Prince Philip, the royal said she only ever met him once but would have loved to meet him when he was younger, because he had always been one of her personal heroes.
Upon hearing of his death, she said she felt ‘terribly sorry’ for the Queen and the royal family, especially Princess Anne, whom she knew when she was younger.
