The Real Beauty And The Beast

The video explores the real-life story of Catherine and Petrus Gonsalves, who inspired the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast. Unlike the Disney version, their lives were marked by exploitation and tragedy. Petrus, suffering from hypertrichosis, was treated as a curiosity in European courts. Catherine de Medici arranged his marriage to a young maiden, Catherine, as a cruel joke. Despite their arranged marriage, the couple had seven children, four of whom inherited Petrus' condition. The family was paraded around Europe as a spectacle, and their children were given away as gifts. The story ends tragically, with Catherine's death recorded but Petrus' fate unknown.

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