Princess Mary’s nephew Count Nikolai of Denmark is moving to Australia to go to university, months after being striped of his royal HRH title by his grandmother.

Handsome model Nikolai, 23, will study at UTS in Sydney for a semester, accompanied by his glamorous designer girlfriend Benedikte Thoustrup.

The pair live together in Copenhagen and are set to move to Sydney to study from August 1 to November 30. 

Nikolai, whose father is Prince Joachim of Denmark, is seventh in line to the Danish throne.

In March, Count Nikolai of Denmark launched a new Instagram account to promote his modelling career after being stripped of his ‘HRH’ status by his grandmother, Queen Margrethe. 

It was a tumultuous year for the Danish Royal Family after the monarch controversially took the title from Prince Joachim’s eldest son, as well as also taking the prince and princess titles from his younger children Athena, 11, Prince Felix, 20, and Prince Henrik, 13.

They are now Counts and Countess and referred to as Their Excellencies – and in January this year the Danish Royal Family updated their website to show the new status.

The Queen insisted the move will be ‘good for them in their future’ and allow the children – who have maintained their positions in the line of succession – to ‘shape their own lives without being limited by the special considerations and duties’ that a formal affiliation with the Danish Royal Family involves.

The news of the royal’s arrival in Australia was confirmed to Danish publication B.T. by press advisor Helle von Wildenrath Løvgreen.

B.T. reports the pair are currently looking for a Sydney apartment to live in and both have studied at the Copenhagen Business School and in Paris on exchange. 

Following his grandmother’s move to strip him and his siblings of their titles ‘for their own good’, Count Nikolai said that he was sad, shocked and confused.

‘My whole family and I are of course very sad. We are, as my parents have also stated, in shock at this decision and at how quickly it has actually gone,’ he told Danish newspaper Extrabladet.

‘I am very confused as to why it has to happen like this,’ he told reporters from outside the Copenhagen apartment where he lives with his girlfriend.

Countess Alexandra, mother to Count Nikolai and Count Felix, was also ‘very sad’ and ‘shocked’ about the decision.

‘She can’t believe why and why now, because there’s no good reason,’ Helle von Wildenrath Løvgreen, press secretary to Countess Alexandra told CNN.

‘They would lose their titles anyway when they get married one day.

‘Her sons are young men so maybe they might get married in the near future so why shouldn’t it wait until that day so that the titles would disappear on a happy day?’

Prince Joachim told Ekstra Bladet that his children had been ‘hurt’ by the decision – and claimed he had only been given a few days to break the news to them before the announcement was made publicly.

Prince Joachim, the brother of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, is now married to Princess Marie of Denmark.