Princess Beatrice's Ex-Boyfriend Found Dead In Miami Hotel Room, Drug Overdose Suspected

Princess Beatrice's ex-boyfriend was found dead earlier this year in a Miami hotel room following a suspected overdose. The US city's police department has confirmed the identity of a man who died in the M Miami Worldcenter hotel on February 7 as Paolo Liuzzo, according to The Independent. Mr Liuzzo's death is being investigated as an ''overdose death'' according to the police. 

His body was flown back to Long Island, New York, and a funeral took place on February 16. His death certificate says he had been working as an art industry consultant and never married.

Sources said he had struggled with drugs and racked up big gambling debts. A longtime friend of Mr Liuzzo said, ''Paolo was not doing great on a personal level. He loved to party and gamble. He began using a lot of pharmaceutical drugs but that later led to cocaine and harder drugs. It was a very fast lifestyle and we all feared it would catch up with him eventually. He was always borrowing money to pay off loans. It became a vicious cycle.''

He was previously arrested in Australia over a string of offences including possessing cocaine.

The princess, who is the daughter of the disgraced Prince Andrew, started dating Mr Liuzzo in 2005 when she was aged 17 and he was 24. Their relationship came to light when he was invited by Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson to join the family on a skiing holiday to Verbier.

However, the couple separated in 2006 after it emerged that he had been forced to return to the US for breaching the conditions of his probation for an assault conviction.

In 2020, Princess Beatrice married the property developer Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in a surprise, private ceremony that was scaled back because of the coronavirus pandemic. She gave birth to a baby girl, her first child in September 2021.