#Prince Albert hit with paternity suit; Princess Charlene shaves head

This week, royal watchers around the world were scratching their heads wondering: What is going on in Monaco?

Earlier this week, Princess Charlene showed up in public sporting a new punk-goth hairstyle, with half her head shaved and dark, heavy eye liner and now comes word that Prince Albert is about to battle yet another paternity case.  

Albert, 62 — who is already supporting two illegitimate children he had before he met Charlene, 42 — was slapped with papers earlier this month by a Brazilian woman who claims she got pregnant while he was dating his now wife. The child, born in 2005, is now 15.

Albert started dating Charlene in 2000.

“The 34-year-old woman – who cannot be named for legal reasons – says she had a passionate affair with Albert, leading to the birth of their daughter – whose name is also classified – on July 4, 2005,” according to the Daily Mail.

The child wrote to Prince Albert in September saying: “I don’t understand why I grew up without a father, and now that I have found you, you don’t want to see me.”

Albert has been called on to take a DNA test and a court case is scheduled for February in Milan.

While the scandal may have happened before their marriage, “the latest case covers a time when [Charlene] was already in love with him,” a source told the paper. “Charlene has had a terrible year, with one family crisis after another, including Albert going down with coronavirus, and now she’s gearing herself up for this hell.”

Charlene, a South African Olympic swimmer, first met the playboy prince in 2000 during a competition in Monaco and, after a long, fraught courtship, married him in 2011. A year later, she gave birth to the couple’s twins and official heirs, Gabrielle and Jacques.

During their courtship, it was found that Albert has sired two illegitimate children by two other women — Alexandre, whose mother Nicole Coste, was a former Air France flight attendant from Togo; and Jazmine Grace, the result of an affair with Tamara Rotolo, an American estate agent. The most recent woman claims she traveled the world with the prince throughout the 2000s including trips to Brazil, the USA, France and even met with Vladimir Putin during one visit to Russia with Prince Albert.

Albert’s lawyer, Thierry Lacoste, told the Daily Mail the latest legal squabble is a “hoax” and added: “There are no intimate photos, no tangible facts surrounding a possible relationship.” Lacoste said the family is considering filing a counterclaim for “attempted fraud and blackmail” as the woman threatened to publish her story if Albert didn’t give her cash.

Charlene — who disappeared before her marriage and was seen crying throughout her wedding — is said to be furious as “It was said that Charlene got news of the child when she was being fitted for a bridal gown in Paris. The rumors subsided for a while, but now they have exploded again,” the site reported.

“People are very quick to say, ‘Oh, why isn’t she smiling in the photos?’ Well, sometimes it’s hard to smile. They don’t know what’s going on in the background,” Charlene said in an interview with the South African magazine Huisgenoot a year ago.