Playboy model, Italian Princess evicted after inheritance feud

Rita Carpenter was born in Texas in the US in 1949 and forged a successful career as a model, actor, TV journalist and real estate executive.

She caused a sensation in 1981 after appearing in a nude pictorial for Playboy, revealing to the publication that she and her first husband, US politician John Jenrette, had sex on the steps of the US Capitol during an all-night House session, although the couple later split.

In 2003, she met Italian Prince Nicolo Boncompagni Ludovisi – while he was still married to his second wife – and the pair went on to wed in 2009.

They moved into the Prince’s historic family home in Rome, called the Casino dell’Aurora, which they renovated and which boasts the only ceiling mural by Italian master Caravaggio on the planet called ‘Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto’.

The sprawling, luxurious property has previously been described as the “world’s most expensive house”.

But since the royal’s death in 2018, Princess Rita Jenrette Boncompagni Ludovisi has been caught up in an ugly inheritance battle with her husband’s adult children from his first marriage.

Prince Nicolo left the villa to his third wife and gave her the right to live there for life, but stipulated that if the property were to be sold, the proceeds would be divided between the Princess and his three sons.

However, the sons disputed the will, claiming the property belongs to them and that their stepmother had allowed it to fall into a state of disrepair.

The stepchildren alleged their grandfather wanted them to inherit the villa, built in the 1600s, and also claimed their father abused them and botched the handling of the family fortune, resulting in a complicated legal battle.

Last January, an Italian judge ordered that the villa be auctioned off for $US531 million ($A792 million) to resolve the dispute, but the plan failed after the home failed to attract any bids.

The price has since been lowered to $US353 million ($A526,000,000) with no success.

And now, the stoush has taken a new turn, with the 73-year-old Princess being subjected to a court-ordered eviction.

A judge initially issued the order in January, claiming the Princess had failed to protect the home and keep it in a “good state of conservation” after an exterior wall fell down.

The grace period ended this week, with Italian police prepared to descend upon the property – which she had been sharing with her Ukrainian housekeeper and the employee’s family members – if she refused to co-operate.

She was finally escorted from the villa along with her dogs on Thursday, as her youngest stepson, Bante Boncompagni Ludovisi, watched on as the property was “liberated from that woman”.

“Princess is not her title,” he yelled, according to reporters at the scene.

The Princess blasted the eviction as “unexpected and unjust” in a statement to The Associated Press earlier this week.

“What a brutal ending to my beautiful life with my beloved Nicolo,” she said.

In the wake of the eviction, she labelled the move a “travesty”, and in a video posted to social media, she said being “brutally evicted from a home which I have lovingly taken care of for the past 20 years” was “illegal” and “unnecessary”.

“Someone said it’s because I’m a woman and I’m American – I don’t know,” she said, adding it was “all about money, obviously”.

Earlier this year, she told The Guardian she planned to “vigorously defend” her right to remain in the home, adding: “I’m trying not to be bitter, but it’s difficult.

“I loved my husband very much, and he loved me,” she told the publication. “I have lived here for 20 years and dedicated all my time and resources to this villa. It really didn’t have to be this way.”