NEW: Royal Family Suffers Tragic Loss

Terrible circumstances surrounding the U.K.’s Royal Family continue, with one young family member learning drugs had taken the life of someone extremely close to her.

Princess Beatrice, daughter to Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, was surprised by revelations that her ex-partner Paolo Liuzzo was found dead in a Miami hotel room back in February. Only through reporting by The Sun was the connection to Beatrice uncovered.

Miami Police Officer Michael Vega told the outlet he responded to the Miami Worldcenter around 3:22 p.m. February 7th after receiving a report of an unconscious male. Just 12 minutes later, Liuzzo’s time of death was called.

“It was investigated as an overdose death. The investigation is open and ongoing,” Vega said.

The 41-year-old had struggled especially with hard drugs and gambling in recent years, according to a friend. According to a death certificate, Liuzzo was listed as a consultant in the arts industry and unmarried. His home address was not far from the hotel where he was found dead.

“Paolo was not doing great on a personal level. He loved to party and gamble. He began using a lot of pharmaceutical drugs but that later led to cocaine and harder drugs,” said someone close to the deceased, the outlet reported.

“It was a very fast lifestyle and we all feared it would catch up with him eventually.”

Liuzzo, a New York native, began dating Beatrice in 2005 when he was 23 and she was 17. The family managed to keep a lid on the blossoming romance until he publicly appeared with them in 2006 during a ski trip in Switzerland.

Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson had good reason to keep her daughter’s dating life out of the public eye: just four years prior, Liuzzo had been charged in the fist-fighting death of a student in Massachusetts. He was found guilty of a downgraded charge of assault and battery and ultimately completed 100 hours of community service.

Beatrice’s mother said at the time, “We all have our own journeys and have to learn our way but Beatrice is a sensible girl, soon to be 18, with many friends including Paolo.”

The family ski trip, however, led to a probation violation by Liuzzo and he was hauled back to the U.S. for an additional six months added to his three years on probation. Shortly after, Beatrice terminated the romance.

Liuzzo later admitted: “It was a stupid fist fight and if I had gone to trial, my lawyers were certain I’d have been found innocent.”

“But if it came out that me and Bea were dating, it wouldn’t be good for her image or Sarah’s so everyone was trying to keep our relationship a secret.”

The split brewed bitterness in Liuzzo, who said in a subsequent interview, “I wasn’t sure I wanted to get in that deep with Bea. I loved her but I wasn’t in love with her.”

“Sometimes another lady friend of mine would come over to my place at Eaton Square in London. It was just messing around, never anything more, and I felt so bad after because of Bea,” he admitted. “I’m not a bad person. But it’s like putting heroin in front of Pete Doherty. Women are my weakness.”

Liuzzo had numerous run-ins with the law since that time. In 2009 he was arrested for crashing his Audi car into traffic lights, ultimately pleading guilty to reckless driving, fraud on a restaurant, and cocaine possession.

“The nature of Paolo’s death will shock Beatrice, but she has proved that after a love life of many twists and turns, it’s possible to find love and happy life within the royal family,” The Sun’s Royal Editor Matt Wilkinson wrote in a summary.

Other tragedies including the cancer diagnoses of King Charles and Kate Middleton have thrown the Royal Family into turmoil since the start of the year. Scuffles between Buckingham Palace and the U.K.’s notoriously feisty tabloid industry have left black eyes as well as questions about how truthful the family has been with their struggles.