THE NEW YORK TIMES: Once-secret son of Belgian royal gains legal recognition as a prince

Prince Laurent of Belgium has formally recognised an adult son who was born before he was married and whom he had not acknowledged publicly until last year.

The prince established legal ties to his son, Clément Vandenkerckhove, 26, before a civil registrar in February, Soir Mag, a weekly magazine in Belgium, reported this week.

Vandenkerckhove was also present and signed the documents, the magazine reported. The move made Vandenkerckhove, a former car salesman, a prince, though he is not expected to have any royal duties and will not receive a royal allowance.

Belgium’s Royal Palace confirmed that Laurent had legally acknowledged his paternity of Vandenkerckhove but did not comment further, saying it was a private matter.

Vandenkerckhove is the child of Laurent and Iris Vandenkerckhove, better known as Wendy Van Wanten, a Belgian model, singer and actress. Laurent, the younger brother of Belgium’s monarch, King Philippe, has three children with his wife, Princess Claire of Belgium, pictured inset, whom he married in 2003.

Under the terms of a 2015 royal decree, Clément Vandenkerckhove is granted the title of prince, but he will not be in line for the throne or have royal duties, according to Christian Behrendt, a professor of constitutional law at University of Liège in Belgium.

People can enter the line of succession only if they are born in a marriage that is approved by a government decree, Behrendt said.

Laurent said in a statement last September that Vandenkerckhove was his biological son. The announcement was “based on a sense of understanding and respect for those involved,” he said at the time.

In June, Vandenkerckhove posted a picture of himself with Laurent and another with Frans Vancoppenolle, his mother’s longtime partner, in an Instagram post celebrating Father’s Day.

“Today I’m celebrating two fathers who, each in their own way, play an important role in my life,” he wrote. “Thank you for everything.”

He said recently he was unsure if he would use his father’s surname Saxe-Coburg “I might want to do that, but I am proud of the name Vandenkerckhove,” he told Het Nieuwsblad.

“If I were to sacrifice that family name, it would be a betrayal of everything my mother has done for me.”

The acknowledgement of a child whose paternity he had long kept a secret generated new scrutiny of Laurent, who has been nicknamed the “prince maudit” — cursed prince — over a series of media spectacles and diplomatic dust-ups.

In 2023, he sued the Belgian state in an effort to gain social security benefits, arguing that being a royal was akin to being self-employed. At the time, he was receiving a stipend of €400,000 a year, though his lawyer said that three-quarters of that went to staff and other expenses. A court partly agreed with him, recommending two years later that Belgian lawmakers consider granting him a state pension even as it dismissed his argument that his royal duties counted as work.

Before that, he risked losing his stipend after ignoring government advice and making a trip to Congo in 2011 without diplomatic oversight. In 2018, Belgium’s parliament voted to reduce his annual endowment as punishment for attending an event at the Chinese Embassy in uniform without government authorisation.

Laurent’s father, King Albert II, the former Belgian monarch, was also at the centre of a paternity case. In 2020, following a long legal battle, the former king conceded that DNA tests showed he was biological father of Delphine Boël, an artist who said she was his daughter from an extramarital affair. She went on to become Princess Delphine of Belgium.