RICHARD EDEN: Fashion designer to the stars Bella Freud lifts the lid on early love affair with Roman prince 36 years her senior By Richard Eden for The Daily Mail Published: 22:05, 9 August 2024 | Updated: 22:06, 9 August 2024 e-mail View comments Her life has never been hemmed in by convention – an inevitable consequence, perhaps, of being born just three months before two of her sisters who had different mothers from her own. When her father, Lucian Freud, was asked how this had happened, he famously replied with a question of his own: 'Don't you realise I had a bicycle?' Now 63, Bella Freud – the seventh of the artist's 14 known offspring – has pedalled back into her past to give a tantalising glimpse of the man who taught her so much. No, not her father, from whom her mother, Bernadine, separated when Bella and her sister Esther were toddlers, but an Italian she met when 21.
'I fell madly in love with a man 36 years older than me,' Bella recalls. Bella Freud with her much-older lover, Dado Ruspoli, who she described as 'incredibly nice: kind, noticing, loving, generous and funny' Bella Freud, now 63, attends the National Portrait Gallery on March 19, 2024 'He was a Roman prince, infamous for his decadent ways and legendary good looks and charm. I agree, it sounds awful.
' But her lover, Dado Ruspoli, was 'incredibly nice: kind, noticing, loving, generous and funny,' adds Bella, explaining that they met at a lunch party given by 'genius art dealer Robert Fraser' – .