Emanuele Filiberto was born in
Geneva, Switzerland, the only child of
Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, a claimant to the headship of the House of Savoy, and his wife,
Marina Doria, a Swiss former water ski champion. Through his paternal grandmother,
Marie-José of Belgium, Emanuele Filiberto is a second cousin of
King Philippe of Belgium and
Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg and a third cousin to
Franz, Duke of Bavaria. Through his paternal grandfather,
Umberto II of Italy, Filiberto is a first cousin once removed of former
Tsar Simeon II of Bulgaria. On 10 November 2002, he accompanied his father and mother to Italy, following revocation of the provision in the Italian constitution that forbade the male Savoy descendants of kings of Italy from setting foot in the country. On the three-day trip, he accompanied his parents on a visit to the
Vatican City for a twenty-minute audience with
Pope John Paul II. He also appeared in a television commercial for a brand of olives, in which he said they made you "feel like a king". On 25 September 2003, he married
Clotilde Courau, a French actress, in Rome. The
best man was
Albert II, Prince of Monaco; among the 1,200 guests were
Valentino Garavani – who had designed the wedding dress – and
Pierre Cardin. In 2007, Filiberto formally requested that the Italian Republic pay him financial damages of 90 million euros. The claim is based on suffering moral injustice during the exile, and was filed along with his father's request for 170 million euros. The government of Italy rejected the demand and, in response, indicated that it may seek damages for historic grievances. As of 2022, Emanuele Filiberto has been leading an effort to gain ownership of the Savoyard Royal Regalia as the private property of the House of Savoy. However, he has said that he will not make a similar claim to the Italian Crown Jewels, as "they are no longer ours". The jewels are estimated to be worth $335 million and have been held by the Italian government since the abolition of the monarchy in 1946.
Controversies In October 2009, the Italian news agency
ANSA reported that Filiberto had stated that he had abused drugs in his youth. In 2015, Emanuele Filiberto engaged in a public spat on
Twitter with aristocratic journalist
Beatrice Borromeo who broke the story of his father's confession on a video regarding the death of Dirk Hamer.
Vittorio Emanuele had sued the newspaper for defamation, but in 2015 after it won the case, Borromeo tweeted ''Vincere una causa è sempre piacevole, ma contro Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia la goduria è doppia! ("Winning a case is always nice, but against Victor Emmanuel of Savoy there is double the pleasure"), and "caro @efsavoia goditi questa sentenza" ("dear @efsavoia enjoy this judgement") which provoked Emanuele Filiberto to defend his father. She had earlier confronted him on camera with a copy of a book on the murder by Hamer's sister, whose preface she had written. In 2018, following the release of polling data by the
Istituto Piepoli that showed fifteen per cent of Italians favoured the formation of a royalist party and eight per cent supported him as future king, Emanuele Filiberto said he was contemplating the launch of a political party to advocate for the restoration of the monarchy in Italy. ==Titles, styles and honours==