Eloise van Oranje: From Countess to Influencer and Anti-Racism Advocate

Read also: Without Eloise’s bathing suit, “The Picture Perfect” would have been boring

Tip of the veil

Eloise van Oranje has been lifting a corner of the veil for some time now about a family that shields its private life as much as possible.

The eldest granddaughter of Princess Beatrix is active on Instagram, with an open account. With several hundred followers in 2018, now there are 388,000. She shares photos there, especially of herself in different clothes and poses, but also, for example, of a family brunch for the birthday girl Beatrix, who was always very reluctant to share her private life. On TikTok she did a happy dance when asked “who made you famous,” she points to her parents.

Van Oranje sells second-hand clothing online and is one of the ambassadors for cosmetics brand L’Oreal. Two years ago, she wrote a lifestyle guide for young people who are going to live in a room for the first time, including the sweet and sour chicken salad “van Pappie”. She has earned a nickname: the ‘gravin influencer’ – a contraction of countess (van Oranje-Nassau) and influencer (someone who influences the behavior of others).

She herself said in 2020 in it Youth News: „I think quite a lot of people like to see ‘oh, it’s just a normal girl’. I always say: ‘I’m a normal girl with a title’. I can’t really make anything else out of it. It’s not that I’m going to behave differently because I’m in a special family.”

Not under the media code

Her parents, she says in the same interview, control “nothing”. “But I personally watch what I post.” She ignores questions about her nieces, the daughters of uncle Willem-Alexander. They do have protected social media accounts.

The difference is also that, unlike Amalia, Alexia and Ariane, Eloise van Oranje does not fall under ministerial responsibility. She is a member of the royal family, but like all third-degree relatives of the king, not a member of the Royal House. It therefore does not fall under the media code that must protect the private life of members of the Royal House.

There is also a downside to looking for publicity yourself. The countess is treated like other celebrities and is photographed in her spare time, even if she does not want to. In 2020 she was smoking on the cover of gossip magazine Weekend with the text ‘Eloise enjoying student life’.

In her book, she writes: “Everything is often made bigger and more dramatic than it really is, which makes people quick to judge.” And on Instagram she wrote: “It makes me uncomfortable to just be photographed.”

She gives such reactions more often. When negative comments are received on her final exam (she must have passed because of the family connections), she writes: “I don’t like those kinds of comments. You are talking about a seventeen year old girl. Please think before posting words like this.” And when there are doubts about her admission to the hotel school, she responds: “I don’t really like questions or comments like that. That gives the impression that I have not worked for it.” And so she also addresses the makers of In Your Face on the Amsterdam terrace about racism. “I’m shaking all over. I am so bad at this.”