Prince Stash Was Born for the Camera.
With his striking good looks, noble blood, a taste for ruffles, satins, and 18th-century couture, not to mention a world-famous groundbreaking artist for a father, he was fated to an interesting life before the camera.
As he came of age in London during the swinging '60s, you could have predicted the photo and fashion shoots, the experimental film roles, the drug-fueled orgies and the friendships with Hendrix, Lennon, Marianne Faithful, and Jagger. You could've even foretold the drug bust with Brian Jones and then another one with Keith Richards a few years later.
From Nobility to TikTok
Who would have predicted he’d become a star of Instagram and TikTok, today’s digital dance floor for girls in midriffs?
But Stash (Prince Stash Klossowski de Rola) has never limited himself according to others’ expectations.
Watch Prince Stash
He was forged in challenge. “It was a harder time then than most people today recognize. We were freaks with long hair and the establishment wanted to take us down. It was actually a time of incredible abuse by those in the 'square' world. We decided we were a fraternity of freaks.”
News of the World, the Playboy Prince 1982.
Scandal in Scotland Yard
In 1967, Scotland Yard seized his phone book and he was soon arrested on drug charges along with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. The trial and subsequent isolation brought Jones's demise and crushed Stash’s incipient film career as his passport was seized and reputation tarnished.
50 years later, he’s a social media sensation with an Instagram following about to pass half a million and nearly two hundred thousand TikTok followers. Interestingly, in his view, the censorship has not stopped. Prince Stash's TikTok soars to 1.7M likes.
A Social Media Explosion
“Normally, I would never embrace such a medium but I was put in contact with Sandy Grigsby, now my creative director and brand manager, and I credit her with the whole thing. I think it can be over-policed and is puritanical in some ways. Someone asked me about David Bowie and the adventures he and I had together, but I couldn’t talk about it because it would violate the community guidelines. I’ve had a video where I showed a Turkish saber that was bequeathed to my ancestors by a Sultan, which caused some controversy. It was alleged that marks on the sword were a way to count its victims. People thought it was an incitement to violence and the video was banned.”
Nevertheless, his current social media explosion has vaulted him into rock star status a second time, though something of the freewheeling nature of the 60s has been lost.
“Reputation counts for so much with celebrities now, so it’s a lot harder to have that rebellious spirit,” he says.
Prince Stash in his Montecalvello castle.
Still you can see his many many short videos, sharing his stories and artifacts, ancient books, Malibu library and private Italian castle, dandified and elegant as ever, a live, gravelly, erudite testament to a colorful past and a characteristically norm-breaking future.
TikTok: @realprincestash
Instagram: @prince.stash
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