In 2013, the Belgian royal family was beset with a scandal that left the country stunned—and a bit confused. A 45-year-old woman, Delphine Boël, came forward and claimed that she was the daughter of King Albert II, the country’s head of state who would soon abdicate the throne due to health issues. After seven years of legal wrangling, including a court-ordered DNA test, the king acknowledged that Boël was his daughter in a statement Monday.
The statement admitted that her DNA test proved paternity, but didn’t give up the argumentative language. “Even though there are arguments and legal objections to justify that legal paternity does not necessarily mean biological paternity, and that the procedure used seems to him disputable, King Albert has decided not to use those arguments and to end with honor and dignity this painful procedure,” his lawyer Alain Berenboom wrote. It doesn’t necessarily end all of the legal wrangling; Boël may still be entitled to a portion of Albert’s fortune that has been estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But it does end the portion of the case that might have had a constitutional impact had Albert refused the test, because a king or former king has never been brought to justice in Belgian history.
In Boël’s telling, this isn’t the first time he has made the admission. In fact, he was a relatively present figure throughout her childhood. Albert met Boël’s mother, Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, in Greece during the 1960s. “From the start I felt that we were not indifferent to each other,” Longchamps would later tell a Belgian TV program. The rest of the story seems like a soap opera version of a royal affair. The king’s wife, Queen Paola, wasn’t happy about the relationship with Longchamps, but the two became close anyway.
Longchamps claims that Albert was not furious when she became pregnant, and that he even sent flowers after her birth. “It was a beautiful period,” she said. “Delphine was a love child. Albert was not the father figure, but he was very sweet to her.”
Albert was born second in line to the throne, and throughout his early life was not expecting to be a monarch. But in 1993, his brother King Baudouin died unexpectedly, leaving no heirs. Hoping to avoid a scandal or a constitutional crisis, Albert cut all ties with his daughter, according to a friend of Boël’s who spoke with the New York Times earlier this year. When Boël came forward to the media in 2013, Albert denied the claims vigorously.
The two parties might have remained at odds until after the king’s death if it weren’t for a court order that came down last May. A Brussels court ordered Albert to submit for a DNA test under a penalty of 5,000 euros a day. Rather than cause another constitutional crisis by ignoring the order, Albert submitted his DNA, and released the results on Monday.
According to People, Boël will not receive a title or a place in the line of succession. But she could be able to use the name of his family and be eligible for one-eighth of his fortune. She might not be an official royal now, but as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have already shown, that’s not what really counts.
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