'Albert II, Prince of Monaco' (Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi; born
14 March 1958), styled '''
His Serene Highness The
Sovereign Prince of Monaco,''' is the head of the
House of Grimaldi and the current ruler of the
Principality of
Monaco.
Early life
Born in
Monaco, Albert attended the Albert I High School, graduating with distinction in
1976. Albert was a camper and later a counselor for six summers at camp Tecumseh on Lake Winnipesaukee, Moultonborough NH in the 1970s. 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 throwing,
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. (His maternal grandfather
John B. Kelly, Sr., and maternal uncle
John B. Kelly, Jr., were both Olympic medal winners in
rowing and were actively involved in the Olympic movement.) 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.
Regency
On
7 March 2005,
Rainier III, Prince of Monaco was admitted to a hospital in the principality and on
22 March he was moved to intensive care. The Prince was being treated for breathing, kidney, and heart trouble. On
31 March 2005, the
Palace of Monaco announced that
Hereditary Prince Albert would take over the duties of his father as
Regent since
Rainier was no longer able to exercise his sovereign functions. This decision was reached by the
Crown Council of Monaco, a body made up of notable local figures with residual powers to make judgments about certain constitutional matters. 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.
However, Albert's Regency, exercised in the name of the incapacitated Sovereign Prince Rainier III, lasted barely a week.
Accession
On
6 April 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
enthronement as ruler of the Principality of Monaco was on
12 July 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. Afterward Albert II returned to the princely palace to host a garden party for 7,000 Monegasques born in the principality. In the courtyard, 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 investiture was on
19 November 2005. Albert was enthroned at Saint Nicholas Cathedral. His family was there in attendance, including his elder sister (and now his heir)
Princess Caroline with her husband
Ernst, Prince of Hanover and three of her four children,
Andrea,
Pierre and
Charlotte; as well as his younger sister
Princess Stéphanie, his paternal aunt
Princess Antoinette, Baroness of Massy, his godson,
Baron Jean-Léonard Taubert-Natta de Massy, and his cousin
Elisabeth-Anne de Massy. Royalty from 16 delegations were present for the festivities throughout the country. The evening ended with an opera performance in
Monte-Carlo.
Albert's reign
Albert continues the policy, initiated by previous rulers of the
statelet, of using his position to draw the world's attention to the need to protect the (marine) environment. Just like his great-great-grandfather
Albert I he traveled to Spitsbergen in July 2005. During this trip he visited the glaciers "Lillihöök" and "Monaco".
Prince Albert II also engaged in an
Arctic expedition, reaching the
North Pole on
Easter,
16 April 2006.
[1] As a result, he is the first incumbent head of state to have reached the North Pole.
The prince is also a Global Advisor to
Orphans International.
Bachelorhood
Over the years, there has been much discussion of the prince's continued bachelor status. Although he has received much press attention for dating well-known fashion models and actresses, including
Angie Everhart,
Catherine Oxenberg,
Brooke Shields,
Claudia Schiffer, and
Victoria Zdrok, his apparent disinclination to marry gave rise to rumors that he is
gay. 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."
[2] He has since confirmed that he is the father of two children.
In October 2005, German magazine
Bunte reported that Prince Albert was dating
Telma Ortiz Rocasolano, a sister-in-law of Spain's
Crown Prince Felipe. However, in November, 2005 the Prince instructed his lawyer, Thierry Lacoste to commence legal proceedings against French newspaper
France Dimanche for violation of privacy and false information regarding the story.
On
10 February 2006, at the
opening ceremony of the
2006 Winter Olympics, Prince Albert was accompanied by former South African Olympic swimmer
Charlene Wittstock. They were seen again together at the
Monaco Grand Prix. In August 2006, she attended the annual Red Cross Ball in the presence of the Princely Family again fuelling speculation about their relationship.
Children born out of wedlock
Jazmin Grace Grimaldi
In 1992, a
California woman,
Tamara Rotolo, filed a
paternity suit against the prince, claiming that he was the father of her daughter, whom she named
Jazmin Grace Grimaldi. Prince Albert was also listed as the father on the child's
Riverside County, California, birth certificate.
[3] and the child was legally surnamed 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"
[4] agreeing with an assertion by the prince's lawyer, Stanley Arkin, that the California court had no jurisdiction.
In court documents and legal depositions, Case#IND78459 in Riverside County Superior Court Family Law Division under Superior Court Judge Graham Anderson Cribbs, Prince Albert admitted that he had been with Tamara Rotolo, who was traveling with friend, Barbara Welker (per her deposition filed with the court), in
Monaco on "a couple of occasions" in July
1991. (The child had been born approximately nine months later, on
4 March 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."
[5]
On
31 May 2006, after
DNA test results confirmed the child's parentage, Prince Albert admitted, in a statement from his lawyer, that he is Jazmin's father. He also extended an invitation for the girl to study and live in Monaco.
According to
Le Figaro, Jazmin Grace Grimaldi is "mature, sweet and intelligent" and an honor student at
St. Margaret's Episcopal School. Per the school website, she is currently enrolled in a private school in the
San Juan Capistrano, California, California area and resides in San Juan Capistrano, California.
Her mother is a real-estate agent.
Alexandre Coste
In May
2005,
Nicole Coste, a former
Air France flight attendant from
Togo, claimed that her youngest son, whom she calls
'Alexandre' Éric Stéphane 'Coste', is Prince Albert's son, proven by DNA tests conducted by Swiss 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 the child. Coste also told ''Paris Match'' that she was living in the prince's Paris apartment and 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 the boy 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
6 July 2005, a few days before he was enthroned on
12 July, Albert II officially confirmed via his lawyer Thierry Lacoste that the 22-month-old was his biological son.
[6]
Additional paternity suit
An earlier paternity suit, brought by
Bea Fiedler, a German topless model whom the ''
Daily Telegraph'' described as a "sex-film star", reportedly was dismissed. A blood test, which was refused by the judge, did not prove that the prince was the father of Fiedler's son, Daniel.
[7]
Succession issues
As Rainier III's health declined, his son's lack of legitimate children became a matter of public and political concern, due to the legal and international consequences in the event Albert were to die without lawful descendants while reigning. Prior to 2002, Monaco's
constitution specified that only the ''last'' reigning prince's "direct and legitimate" descendants could inherit the crown.
[8] Therefore, Albert's sisters were due to lose their succession rights once their brother mounted the throne, leaving the Grimaldi
dynasty to face extinction if Albert failed to produce a child within marriage or by adoption. Nor could a reigning or hereditary prince adopt an heir prior to age 50, according to a
1918 law.
[9] (This situation did not arise in Rainier's case, as he succeeded his maternal grandfather
Louis II, rather than a relative.)
[9]
On
2 April 2002 Monaco passed Princely Law 1.249 which provides that if a reigning prince dies without surviving legitimate issue, the throne passes to his siblings and their descendants according to the principle of male-preference
primogeniture.
[11] In October 2005, (after Albert's accession to the throne) this law took full effect when ratified by
France, pursuant to the
1918 Franco-Monégasque Treaty, which had stipulated that Monaco would become a French
protectorate if the throne fell vacant.
[12] His sisters and their legitimate children thereby re-acquired the right to succeed Albert upon the throne if the occasion arises, while the
monarch lost the right to adopt an heir.
[12]
Albert's illegitimate son, Eric Alexandre, or daughter, Jazmin Grace, could acquire claims to the throne ahead of all others currently in the
order of succession if Monaco's constitution were changed to that effect. In Eric Alexandre's case, he would also be
legitimated and automatically become Monaco's
heir apparent under current law if Albert were to marry his mother. But in a 2005 exchange with
U.S. interviewer
Larry King, he said this will not happen.
In Jazmin's case, however, Albert's marrying the mother would probably not legitimate her nor give her a place in the line of succession, as she would likely be considered an "
adulterine" child. The man to whom her mother had been married since 1987, David Schumacher, filed for a divorce from Rotolo on
13 September 1991 in California, according to a
San Diego Union-Tribune article by Jeff Wilson of the
Associated Press. He cited as grounds "irreconcilable differences", and Rotolo did not contest the petition, the couple having been separated since April 1989.
Albert has said neither of his children will be eligible for the throne in statements confirming their paternity.
16 As of July 2007,
Caroline, Princess of Hanover, remains first in the
line of succession to the Monegasque throne. Though she is only the
heiress-presumptive and not
heiress-apparent, Caroline is the ''Hereditary Princess of Monaco'' according to the Grimaldi
house law.
[14]
Until Albert should have legitimate descendants born of a recognized marriage, Caroline's eldest son, the untitled
Andrea Casiraghi, is second in line to the throne.
Environmental issues
===
2007:
(International) Year of the Dolphin ===
The year
2007 has been declared as
(International) Year of the Dolphin -
(http://www.yod2007.org) by the
United Nations and
UNEP (
United Nations Environment Programme). The
UN Convention on Migratory Species, together with its specialized agreements on dolphin conservation
ACCOBAMS and
ASCOBANS and the
WDCS (
Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society) have proposed 2007 as the
Year of the Dolphin ('YOD')).
(International) Patron of the 'Year of the Dolphin' is H.S.H. Prince Albert II of
Monaco. He has launched the start of the year on
17 September 2006: "The Year of the Dolphin gives me the opportunity to renew my firm commitment towards protecting marine biodiversity. With this strong initiative we can make a difference to save these fascinating marine mammals from the brink of extinction."
Titles
Albert has held two positions from birth:
★ ''His Serene Highness'' The
Hereditary Prince of Monaco,
Marquis of Baux (1958-2005)
★ ''His Serene Highness'' The
Sovereign Prince of Monaco (2005-)
[15]
As Prince, his official shortened title is '
His 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).
Ancestry
Notes
1. Albert, à nouveau père
2. "Madame Figaro", 1994; reported in Daily Mail, 13 August 1994, page 17
3. according to the website of the ''Desert Sun'', a newspaper in Palm Springs
4. Evening Standard article, 24 March 1993, page 20
5. "Madame Figaro", 1994; reported in Daily Mail, 13 August 1994, page 17.
6. Monaco prince admits love child
7. "Bea in His Bonnet," "Daily Telegraph", 29 July 1987. Also "Sunday Mirror", 8 March 1998, pages 1+
8. Status of Monaco
9. Succession Crisis of 1918
10. Succession Crisis of 1918
11. The Constitution (2002)
12. New Treaty with France (2002)
13. New Treaty with France (2002)
14. The House Laws
15. Albert to inherit lion's share
References
★ "
Riverside Press-Enterprise",
13 March 1993, page BO2
★
Palm Desert girl may be daughter of Prince Albert II
★
Albert with g/f
External links
★
Monaco
★
Prince Albert's daughter Jazmin Rotolo (includes pictures)
★
Prince Albert Ancestry Chart
★
Prince Albert Family Ties Chart
★
Photo of Prince Albert inspecting Guard outside Palace on day of Accession
★
Is Prince Albert Set To Announce His Engagement? 4th August 2006
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