Sitadevi was born to the Raja of Pithapuram, Rao Venkata Kumara Mahipati Krishna Surya Rao in the year 1917 at Madras.
Sitadevi first married the EX VC of AU Sri M R Apparao garu, the Jamindar of Vyyuru, but was not happy with him as she was a big socialite and MR was not of that sort.
Princess Niloufer the Nijams daughter in law was a close friend of Sitadevi.
With MR, she gave birth to one son Vidyut Kumar Apparao also nicknamed as Tally.
She met the Maharaja of Baroda Pratap Singh Rao Gaekwad in 1943 in the Madras race course.
He was then considered as the 8th richest man in the world and the 2nd richest prince in India.
The Gaekwad was totally taken in by her charm and fell for her badly. But he was then already married and had 4 children.
Moreover, his grandfather has set a rule in his state that no man should have 2 wives. Sitadevi also liked Gaekwad which perhaps may well be due to his riches.
Gaekwad wanted to marry her but she was already married and could not expect a divorce from MR, so as per the suggestion of Gaekwad’s lawyers she converted to Islam by which act her earlier marriage was annulled.
She then converted back to Hinduism and married the Gaekwad. Now the English felt the Raja has violated the law of the state on polygamy and summoned him. But he managed to convince the British on that.
In 1946 Gaekwad took her on a tour of Europe and they bought a mansion in Monte Carlo in Monaco and Sitadevi took up residence there.
Gaekwad used to visit her often bringing the treasures of Baroda to Monaco.
The couple made 2 trips to the US where they spent a cool 10 million dollars and that was in somewhere around 1950.
The couple transferred priceless jewellery from the treasure of Baroda (you can find the list on Wikipedia page on Sitadevi, Maharani of Baroda)
After independence our officials managed to get back some of the jewellery but the rest passed on to Sitadevi.
In 1994 the Indian officials managed to recover a pearl carpet in a Geneva vault. Currently the carpet is displayed at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha.
The Star of the South and other jewels of Baroda state which went to Sitadevi were with jewelers in Amsterdam.
Sitadevi gave one son to Gaekwad named Sayaji Rao Gaekwad in 1945. She doted on her son, nicknamed him Princie and partied with international luminaries like Aristotle Onasis. Onasis had a big fleet of ships then and is considered as one of the richest men in the world
In 1953 she sold her anklets to famous jewelers. The anklets had many large emeralds and diamonds.
These jewels were used and a beautiful necklace was made by the jewelers which was sold to the Duchess of Windsor.
In 1957 when the Duchess wore that necklace and went to a New York ball. Sitadevi was also present at the ball.
While people were admiring beauty of the necklace of the Duchess, Sitadevi exclaimed that the jewels looked better on her feet. The Duchess was scandalized and returned back the necklace to the jeweler.
Sitadevi was fond of cars and had a custom made Mercedes W126 for herself. She also had a Rolls Royce.
We do not know the reason but she divorced Gaekwad in 1956. Prince Rainier of Monaco gave her and her son a citizenship of Monaco.
After the divorce too she kept up her lavish lifestyle and ultimately she had to sell some of her jewels to maintain it in 1974.
Unfortunately for her, her son committed suicide after his 40th birthday in 1985 due to alcoholism and drug addiction. It is a tragedy that her earlier son to MR also died of over consumption of alcohol.
Sitadevi died 4 years later in 1989.
See the way the lady lived and died which reads like a movie story. She sped through her life like a fast moving Comet. But then that is the way her personality is and perhaps that is the way she wanted her life to be.
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