Dior Homme : Runway - Paris Fashion Week - Menswear F/W 2020-2021© GettyImages

Happy birthday, Nikolai! The prince of Denmark is turning 22

Nikolai will soon be moving to Paris with his girlfriend, Benedikte Thoustrup.


Senior Writer
UPDATED AUGUST 28, 2021 12:06 PM EDT

Nikolai, the prince of Denmark, is celebrating his 22nd birthday. The eldest son of King Joachim and Countess Alexandra has decided to spend a semester in Paris, where he’ll be studying a semester for a career in administration and business.

Per Billed Bladet, the prince will be joined by his girlfriend of three years, Benedikte Thoustrup, who previously studied in The Sorbonne.

In order to pursue his new career, Nikolai will be giving up on his modeling career, which he successfully started in 2018, when he modeled in London Fashion Week and later on modeled for brands like Burberry and Dior.

Nikolai will be studying a semester in Paris while still studying Copenhagen Business School (CBS), where he’s been studying since the fall of 2019. The semester abroad is a partnership between universities, that starts at the end of the year in September until January 2022.

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The Prince modeling for Dior.

The Prince’s initial idea was to spend the semester in Hong Kong, the birthplace of her mother, the Countess Alexandra. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the prince adapted to something that was closer to him, where he would be surrounded by family. In Paris, the prince has plenty of family to surround himself with. His father Joachim and his siblings Felix, Henrik, and Athena, also live there.

The Prince’s move to Paris with his girlfriend is yet another step that shows how independent he is and how set he is on making his own way. At the start of the year, Nikolai moved out on his own and took a step forward in his relationship with Benedikte, moving into a 70 square meter luxury apartment in Copenhagen.

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Prince Nikolai alongside Prince Felix and Queen Margrethe.

The Prince has lead a busy life, serving in the military, developing a successful career as a high-end model and now, cementing his place in the business world. Despite the change in career, the prince has long been interested in business, taking a job in 2019 as an apprentice to multimillionaire Mikael Goldschmidt.