At a boarding school in Switzerland, she saw a 15-year-old boy propose to his 13-year-old girlfriend with a Cartier diamond ring. Another classmate offered a trip to New York City (on his private jet) to the first people who liked a post he had shared on Facebook. And in local pubs, students competed to see who could spend the most money, displaying their tabs like trophies.
These are some of the experiences that Leonie von Ungern-Sternberg, a 29-year-old German woman, shares on TikTok under the label “Modern Baroness Diaries.” Through her social media account, she attempts to show that she’s different: not all aristocrats are the same.
Ungern-Sternberg currently lives in Madrid, where she’s studying to obtain an MBA from IE Business School. Before beginning her graduate degree, she was already familiar with Spain — as well as the Spanish language — because, for a time, during her childhood, she lived in the city of Marbella. Her father was in love with southern Spain. She also had Latin American nannies.
“My sister’s first language was Spanish. [So], at dinner I had to translate what she was saying, so that my parents could understand her.” She also speaks German and some English and Arabic.
Question. You have more than 93,000 followers on TikTok. What’s the profile of your audience and what do you offer them?
Answer. My last name is famous for both good and bad reasons. I have ancestors who did terrible things. And so, I thought, “What can I give back?” I decided I could debunk what you see in series like Bridgerton — which has nothing to do with reality — and show that I’m a normal woman. [I’m] a hardworking student who grew up with many privileges — [and] not because I belonged to the aristocracy, which means nothing these days — but because of the culture I was given.
Knowledge must be democratized; education should never be a luxury. Nearly 70% of my audience is female, mostly from the United States. And this might be because people there are more divided than ever due to the political climate, with many people imposing their opinions through platforms like TikTok. People are hungry for context… and that’s what I try to provide. Context helps open minds.
Q. Which stereotypes about the aristocracy would you say are real? And which are just stereotypes or clichés that no longer correspond to reality?
A. Almost all European aristocratic families lost everything at some point in history. My parents taught me that you can lose everything because of a war, a financial crash, or whatever. The only thing they can never take from you is what’s in your head. So, the importance that the aristocracy places on education is real. Then, there’s the stereotype of the arrogant aristocrat… but it depends on the person. I know many non-aristocrats who are arrogant, as well as aristocrats who aren’t.
Q. In what ways do you think you’re similar to any other woman your age? And in what ways are you different?
A. I have the same things in my head as other women my age. I’m turning 30 and I want to start a family; I spend a lot of time thinking about what kind of profession will allow me to balance work and family life. I want to be an independent woman, because a man can also try to take everything from you. I’m not like other women my age, in that I grew up surrounded by many different cultures in different countries.
Q. On your TikTok account, you’ve denounced the social pressure that’s placed on women to become mothers. You’ve criticized how some men are obsessed with their biological clocks, counting down the hours…
A. Yes! There are men who pressure you by telling you when you have to have children. And, sometimes, they use this to delay women’s careers. There are also women who pressure [other women].
I know many women who’ve had babies at 45, and that’s fantastic! And, if you don’t want children, that’s fine, too. The problem is that it seems women are always seen as doing something wrong: if you want to wait to have children, you’re cold. If you want to have them soon, you’re not ambitious enough. We’re going to be judged no matter what we do. So, the best thing is to ignore those judgments and forge our own path forward.
Q. Do you consider yourself to be a feminist? Is feminism a topic that interests you?
A. Obviously.
Q. You’ve also spoken about what it’s like to date as an aristocrat and about a prince who tried to seduce you by praising the advantages of uniting lineages. You ended up blocking him because he was annoying. Have you encountered many “frogs” among the nobility?
A. No. I’ve had two boyfriends. Neither one was an aristocrat. That prince simply had very different values than mine. Focusing on surnames, on bloodlines… that might have been valid 200 years ago, but not now.
Q. Do you know any members of the Spanish royal family?
A. No. My social circle here is made up of my MBA classmates.
Q. And are you aware of the controversy surrounding the emeritus king’s memoirs? He’s complained about being the only Spaniard who doesn’t receive a pension after 40 years of service.
A. (Laughs). I hadn’t heard about it; to be honest, I’m not very interested in those topics.
Q. You stopped posting on TikTok for a while after a follower criticized your relation to Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, known as “the Bloody Baron” or “the God of War.” You then explained who he was and what he had done… and the video went viral. How did you learn your family’s story? Did someone tell it to you at home?
A. [I heard it] at school. A history teacher came to my desk one day with a book and said, “Look, someone from your family.” I asked my mother about it later. She explained that, indeed, “the Bloody Baron” was a relative of ours.
Q. Is it strange to see your last name in a textbook?
A. Not really. I have many relatives who appear in books. What was strange – but in a good way – was seeing myself in The New York Times for something I had done: my TikTok diaries. That day, I felt butterflies in my stomach.
Q. You also have great-grandparents with a very different story from that of the Bloody Baron: they were victims of the Nazis.
A. Yes. When I was little, I lived in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. And I would come home crying [from school] because they would tell me, “You’re a Nazi because you’re German.” So, my mother told me the real story:
My maternal great-grandparents were helping their Jewish friends. They made a pact that, if the Nazis came after them, they would take their own lives, rather than give them information. They lived in a castle. And, when my great-grandfather saw the SS officers approaching through the window, he shot my great-grandmother and then killed himself.
My grandfather was 16 years old at the time. The Nazis took everything of value from the house. He fled with a backpack containing only mementos: a photo album and some 500-year-old glasses that held more sentimental than monetary value. These are the only things we have left in the family from that time. That’s my blood.
Q. And you say that, later on, your grandfather was captured…
A. Yes. He became a prisoner of war. He managed to escape many times, but they always caught him again. He survived several shootouts while trying to flee. And I remember that his body was riddled with bullet marks. They kept him alive because he spoke 10 languages: Russian, Czech, Polish, Estonian… he studied to become a surgeon.
When the war ended, he returned to Hamburg with that backpack and rebuilt himself from scratch. I’m very proud of him. That’s the part of my story I like to remember… not the part about the Bloody Baron.
Q. Your family has almost 900 years of documented history. In your TikTok diaries, you recount that, in 100 years, everything was taken from them twice: first by the Russians and then by the Nazis.
A. Yes. The Nazis and, before that, the Russians, when they came to Estonia. They expelled the nobles. My family had to flee. My grandfather refused to speak Estonian again until the day he died, because it was too painful for him to remember the country he had to leave.
Q. What’s the strangest question you’ve been asked on TikTok?
A. Probably when people ask if I want to marry them. I suppose it’s a joke, but I get a lot of requests (laughs).
Q. On TikTok, you’ve spoken about the eating disorder you suffered from that left you in a wheelchair for a year. Does having an audience mean having a responsibility?
A. Absolutely. I noticed that many girls were asking me what I ate, what exercises I did… and I decided to talk about my eating disorder. One girl sent me a 20-minute video telling me that she had had suicidal thoughts and that she hadn’t left her house for five years. Another person wrote to me, saying that a friend of hers was going through the same thing: she asked me how she could help her.
I made a video trying to explain what I would have done differently if I could go back in time. I felt that we had opened up a space to share stories: talking about it helped all of us.
Q. On TikTok, you say that you started working at the age of 18 and that you had three jobs at the same time. What were they?
A. One was detecting counterfeit Hermès bags [as a child, her mother would tie her to a chair with scarves from the brand, so that she wouldn’t slouch] and Chanel bags in a secondhand shop. I also worked at a start-up, building luxury brands. And, on weekends, I was a waitress in a café. It was a lot of fun.
Q. You didn’t need to work. So, why did you do it? And why work as a waitress?
A. When I finished high school, my parents told me that I had to earn my own money to pay for my studies. That’s why I chose those jobs. I think it’s very important to provide a service to someone. I want my children to learn that in the future, too.
Q. You’ve also worked as an artificial intelligence consultant. What exactly did you do in that position? And what did you learn from that field?
A. I analyzed how companies can interact with their customers in a more personal and human way. During my MBA, we’ve discussed algorithmic biases such as, for example, the discrimination that Amazon practices when hiring women, or police racism in the U.S. — which are the ethical problems that such powerful machines pose. The big problem of the future is precisely that: how to ensure that AI is used without bias.
Q. Do you think that society is aware of this problem?
A. Absolutely not. It’s a battle between the U.S. and China, with Europe caught in the middle, lagging behind in so many ways. The problem Europe faces is how to maintain ethical standards, while still remaining competitive in the market. China and the U.S. are designing artificial intelligence according to their own interests and standards. We’re caught in the middle.
Q. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
A. I don’t know. I don’t consider myself to be an influencer, but I think my goal is to become a voice for my generation.
