After foregoing her titles and a $1.3 million compensation to marry her ‘commoner’ college lover, Japan’s former Princess Mako is now reportedly an unpaid volunteer at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
According to the Japan Times, Mako Komuro, 30, is working in the famed museum’s Asian art collection, helping to curate an exhibit of paintings inspired by the life of a 13th-century monk who introduced Buddhism to Japan.
Her beautiful one-bedroom apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, which she shares with her husband and aspiring lawyer, Kei Komuro, 30, is a 10-minute drive from the Upper East Side museum.
The couple had been engaged for eight years before marrying in an intimate civil ceremony in Tokyo last October.
Only male members of the Japanese imperial dynasty are permitted to marry non-royals in Japan, but Mako’s decision to marry for love means she is no longer a princess, and her future sons will not be in line for the emperorship.
Mako and Kei met in 2013 while both attending the International Christian University outside of Tokyo, where she was studying art and cultural heritage and he was studying business. She went on to work at Tokyo’s University Museum as a special researcher.
She also earned a master’s degree in art museum and gallery studies from the University of Leicester in England in 2016, according to People. She studied art history at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and a bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of Leicester in England.
‘She’s qualified and will almost certainly be handling things from the collection.’ In general, it’s work that necessitates a lot of planning and often entails a lot of time spent in the library,’ a former Met curator said of her current position.
Mako is the niece of the reigning Japanese Emperor Naruhito and the daughter of Crown Prince Fumihito.