Albert II Prince of Monaco: Encyclopedia - Albert II Prince of Monaco

Albert II, Prince of Monaco

• • HSH The Sovereign Prince
  • HRH The Princess of Hanover
  • HSH Princess Stéphanie
• HSH Princess Antoinette

His Serene Highness Prince Albert II (Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi; born March 14, 1958), styled HSH The Sovereign Prince of Monaco, is the head of the House of Grimaldi and the current ruler of the Principality of Monaco.

He is the second child, and only son, of Rainier III and his American wife, the film star Grace Kelly, and became the reigning prince following his father's death on April 6, 2005. Prior to that, he had been the heir apparent, carrying the titles of HSH the Hereditary Prince of Monaco and Marquis of Baux; after his father became increasingly ill in early 2005, he was appointed regent, in which capacity he served for a week during the last days of his father's life.

Albert II Prince of Monaco - Early life

Born in Monaco, Albert attended the Albert I High School, graduating with distinction in 1976. He spent a year training in various princely duties, and enrolled at Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1977 as Albert Grimaldi, studying political science, economics, music, and English literature, and also joined Chi Psi fraternity. He spent the summer of 1979 touring Europe and the Middle East with the Amherst Glee Club and graduated in 1981 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.

During school, Albert was an enthusiastic athlete, participating in cross country, javelin, handball, judo, swimming, tennis, rowing, sailing, skiing, squash and fencing. He is a patron of Monaco's football teams. He competed in the bobsled at the 1988, 1992, 1994, 1998, and 2002 Winter Olympics. He has been a member of the International Olympic Committee since 1985. The press reported the prince refused any special treatment during his Olympic stints, and lived in the same bare-bones quarters as all the other athletes.

On 25 October 2002, Albert visited Miami, Florida for a World Olympians Association fund-raiser at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. The group's mission was to have the 100,000 Olympians get involved with their communities and talk to young athletes about dedication and training.

Albert II Prince of Monaco - Regency

On March 7, 2005, Rainier was admitted to a hospital in the principality and on March 22 he was moved to intensive care. The Prince was being treated for breathing, kidney, and heart trouble. On March 31, 2005, the Palace of Monaco announced that Prince Albert would take over the duties of his father as Regent since Rainier was no longer able to exercise his royal functions. The 47-year-old prince spent his first day as regent of Monaco caring for his critically ill 81-year-old father, who was Europe’s longest-serving living monarch.

Albert II Prince of Monaco - Accession

On April 6, 2005, Hereditary Prince Albert became Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco, upon the death of Prince Rainier III.

The first part of Prince Albert II's enthroning as ruler of the Principality of Monaco was on July 12, 2005, after the end of the three-month mourning period for his father. A morning Mass at Saint Nicholas Cathedral led by the archbishop of Monaco, Monsignor Bernard Barsi, formally marked the beginning of his reign. After the mass, Prince Albert II returned to the royal palace to host a garden party for 7,000 Monegasques born in the principality. In the courtyard of the royal palace, the Prince was presented with two keys of the city as a symbol of his investiture. The evening ended with a spectacular fireworks display on the waterfront.

The second part of his coronation was on November 19, 2005. Albert was enthroned at Saint Nicholas Cathedral. His family was there in attendance, including his elder sister (and now heir) Princess Caroline with her husband Ernst of Hannover and three of her four children, Andrea, Pierre and Charlotte; as well as his younger sister Princess Stéphanie and his paternal aunt Princess Antoinette. Royalty from 16 delegations was present, and there were big festivities in the country. The evening ended with an opera performance in Monte-Carlo.

Albert II Prince of Monaco - Controversy

Albert II Prince of Monaco - Bachelorhood

Over the years, there has been much discussion of the prince's continued bachelor status. Though he has received much press attention for dating well-known fashion models and actresses, including Angie Everhart and Claudia Schiffer, as well as Victoria Zdrok (who has been both a Playboy Playmate and a Penthouse Pet), his apparent disinclination to marry gave rise to rumors that he is gay, and merely engaged in superficial, sham dating. Prince Albert has consistently denied this suggestion, most notably in a 1994 interview published in the French magazine Madame Figaro. "At first it was amusing," he said, "but it becomes very irritating in the long term to hear people say that I am homosexual." ^[1]

These rumors would be put to rest by 2005 with a paternity claim against Albert that was backed up by DNA tests.

In October 2005, German magazine Bunte reports that Prince Albert is dating Telma Ortiz, a sister-in-law of Spain's Crown Prince Felipe.However, in November, 2005 the Prince has instructed his lawyer, Thierry Lacoste to commence legal proceedings against French newspaper France Dimanche for violation of privacy and false information regarding the story.

Albert II Prince of Monaco - Paternity suits

In 1992, a California woman, Tamara J. Rotolo, filed a paternity suit against the prince, claiming that he was the father of her illegitimate daughter, whom she named Jazmin Grace Grimaldi. However, the case, which went to trial in 1993, eventually was dismissed by Superior Court Judge Graham Anderson Cribbs, who claimed that there was "insufficient contact between Albert and the state of California to justify hearing a suit there" (Evening Standard, March 24, 1993, page 20), agreeing with an assertion by the prince's lawyer, Stanley Arkin, that the California court had no jurisdiction. In court papers, Prince Albert admitted that he had been with Tamara Rotolo in Monaco on "a couple of occasions" in July 1991. (The child had been born approximately nine months later, on March 4, 1992.) As reported by a local newspaper covering the case, "Arkin asserted that the Riverside County court had no jurisdiction in the case since the romantic encounter supposedly occurred in Monaco and Albert has had no contacts with California that relate to the issues in the suit." ^[2] Prince Albert has not agreed to Rotolo's request that he take a paternity test.

An earlier paternity suit, brought by Bea Fiedler, a German topless model whom the Daily Telegraph described as a "sex-film star", reportedly also was dismissed. A blood test, which was refused by the judge, did not prove that the prince was not the father of Fiedler's son, Daniel. ^[3]

Albert II Prince of Monaco - Illegitimate son

In May 2005, Nicole Coste, a former Air France flight attendant from Togo, claimed that her youngest son, Alexandre is Prince Albert's son, proven by DNA tests conducted by technicians working on orders from the Monegasque government. She further claimed the prince had signed a notarized certificate confirming paternity but that she had not received a copy of it. The French weekly Paris Match published a ten-page interview with Coste and included photographs of the prince holding and feeding Alexandre. Coste also told Paris Match that she is presently living in the prince's Paris apartment, has been receiving an allowance from him while pretending to be the girlfriend of one of his friends in order to maintain privacy. She also said that the prince had last seen Alexandre in February 2005. A spokesman for Prince Albert had no comment, though upon news of Coste's claims, the prince's lawyer, Thierry Lacoste, announced that "A judicial strategy will be determined within the next few days."

In mid May 2005, Lacoste announced that as a result of the international publicity over the revelations of the prince's son, Prince Albert is suing the Daily Mail, Bunte, and Paris Match for delving too deeply into his private life.

On July 6, 2005, a few days before he was enthroned on July 12, Albert II officially confirmed via his lawyer Thierry Lacoste that 22 month-old Alexandre Coste is his son. [4].

Albert II Prince of Monaco - Succession issues

As Prince Albert has yet to marry, his lack of legitimate issue became a matter of public and political concern, due to the possibility that there might be no successors to the throne upon his death. Monaco's constitution specifies that only "direct and legitimate" descendants can assume the throne. Albert's illegitimate son, Alexandre, could be legitimated via legislation or if Albert marries the boy's mother, however, he has so far refused to do either. On April 2, 2002 Monaco passed Princely Law 1.249 which provides that if a reigning prince dies without surviving legitimate issue, the throne would pass to his siblings and their descendants under the rule of male-preference primogeniture. Before this change, the crown could pass to a direct male descendant of the reigning prince only, making Albert's sisters ineligible. This change made the extinction of the Grimaldi dynasty less likely. (This did not arise in Rainier's case, as he succeeded his maternal grandfather, not an uncle.)

Caroline, Princess of Hanover, follows Albert as heiress presumptive in the line of succession to the Monegasque throne. Though she is only the heiress-presumptive and not heiress-apparent, in the constitution, the title Hereditary Prince or Princess is not reserved for heirs-apparent. Thus, Caroline is Hereditary Princess, and her son, Andrea, is currently second in line to the throne.

Albert II Prince of Monaco - Titles

Albert has held two positions from birth:

• His Serene Highness The Hereditary Prince of Monaco, Marquis of Baux (1958-2005)
• His Most Serene Highness The Sovereign Prince of Monaco (2005-) [5]

As Prince, his official shortened title is His Most Serene Highness Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco; this does not include the many other styles claimed by the Grimaldi family (see Sovereign Prince of Monaco for a complete list of titles).

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