Albert's affairs and "bonus" children aren't a problem, Charlene's spending is?



As Prince Albert of Monaco turns 68 today, the circle of trust surrounding him is a lot smaller than it used to be.

In a new interview, Albert's former friend and lawyer Thierry Lacoste has claimed the Monegasque ruler has conducted a 'Stalin-like purge' of his closest allies and advisors.

Lacoste is among the nearly 40 people affected by the palace shakeup, as he told The Times: 'I have been betrayed with a capital "B". The prince is now surrounded by dishonest people.'

In 2023, Albert dismissed Lacoste, his money man Claude Palmero, chief-of-staff Laurent Anselmi, and ex-Supreme Court president Didier Linotte after they were accused of corruption by an anonymous website set up in 2021.

And it calls into question his marriage to Princess Charlene after a new book by Palmero laid bare how the 'G4' were instrumental in keeping the peace while also managing Albert's alleged indiscreet affairs.

The book Monaco Unveiled: The Quiet Takeover Of The Principality contains several eyebrow-raising revelations about their relationship after it was threatened by secret love children and claims of the princess’s reckless spending habits.

'The royal couple may give the performance of a strong union, but reality appears to contradict this narrative,' Palmero wrote in the book. 'Such is the rumour in Monaco.'

Reports that Prince Albert and Princess Charlene's relationship was on shaky ground date back to their wedding day in 2011, when she was dubbed the 'Runaway Bride' by French media for reportedly trying to flee before the ceremony (a suggestion she later laughed off).

Albert, then 53, married Charlene Wittstock - 20 years his junior - on July 1, 2011.

The son of former Prince Rainier III, who died in 2005, tied the knot with the ex-Olympian during two lavish wedding ceremonies that cost a combined £53million.

With a glittering 850-strong guest list that included Sir Roger Moore and Prince Edward, the religious ceremony on July 2 followed the civil nuptials a day earlier.

Charlene was breathtaking in an off-the-shoulder Armani gown, complete with a six-metre train and studded with Swarovski diamonds and mother-of-pearl teardrops.

But the couple's uneasy kiss - and the fact that at one moment Charlene was in tears - perhaps betrayed the trouble that had already taken place and the further angst that was to come.

Days before the big day, rumours began to circulate that Charlene had tried to flee the country on three occasions with a one-way ticket to Johannesburg.

A Parisian news magazine reported that Charlene had been stopped at Nice airport after allegedly learning a 'distressing' revelation about her future husband's private life.

A senior Monaco detective claimed at the time: 'Charlene had her passport confiscated so that the Prince's entourage could persuade her to stay.'

The rumour mill in France went into overdrive. Charlene had, it was suggested, heard talk of an illegitimate child, allegedly conceived when she was dating Prince Albert in 2005.

But the princess would go on to dismiss the 'hilarious' rumours. She said: 'Why would he go through all this effort to have our dearest friends come join us, for us to be reluctant?'

Palmero, who drafted the couple's pre-nuptial agreement, has dedicated a whole chapter in his new book to Monaco's princess, The Telegraph reported.

While he dismissed claims that Charlene tried to escape her own wedding, Palmero seemed to suggest Albert fell out of love with Charlene.

He said sources close to Albert maintain he was in love with Charlene 'at least at the start' and revealed the prince asked him to set up a secret bachelor pad one year after the royal wedding.

Palmero first revealed details about Albert's 'love nest' during a police interrogation in September 2024 after the prince accused him of a 'breach of secrecy'.

In January 2024, French newspaper Le Monde published a series of scandalous allegations about the Grimaldis that were taken from Palmer's 'secret' notebooks.

During his time working for Albert, Palmero kept a painstaking record of his employers' personal and public dealings - some of which caused the family a great deal of embarrassment at the time.

Le Monde followed this up by printing excerpts from Palmero's police interrogation, before he was released without charge.

Included in Palmero's statements were claims he had prepared a 'bachelor pad' for Prince Albert in 2012 - a year after he married Charlene.

The prince's former confidant claimed he had been 'commissioned' to find his boss 'a discreet pied-á-terre in complete confidentiality'.

In 2017, he was also allegedly asked to 'make sure the property was ready' for the prince to go there. Palmero also claims that Albert had listed him as the official tenant to conceal his true motives.

'That proves how unusual the missions he assigned to me were,' the former advisor told officials. 'So it is quite inappropriate to claim that I overstepped my duties. Do you think it is the job of a financial asset manager to take care of his bachelor pad and such matters?

'He trusted me... And who else could he have asked for such things, apart from me?'

The newspaper also reported Albert had 'opened a Pandora's box' with his complaints against Palmero, who is accused by the prince of a 'breach of confidentiality, invasion of privacy, and receiving the proceeds of two offences'.

The police transcripts also revealed how Albert was allegedly financing his illegitimate children and their mothers, in what would have been another blow to his marriage.

Palmero, 68, looked after the family's money (including their investments, their properties and the main palace) from 2001 to 2023, just as his father, André, had done for Prince Rainier III of Monaco two decades before him.

He recorded how Albert spent millions every year from a secret French bank account to pay his former mistresses and love children - with Jazmin Grimaldi, 31, and Alexandre Coste-Grimaldi, 20, receiving allowances of £344,000 a year each.

In his conversations with the police, Palmero claimed that he and Albert's lawyer Thierry Lacoste - who was also dismissed by the prince - 'handled' matters regarding Alexandre's mother Nicole Coste, including the birth and recognition of their son.

The prince was said to be 'very uneasy and wanted to carry out these operations without anyone finding out, which was done successfully'.

Coste, a former Air France flight attendant, fell pregnant with Alexandre in 2003, and Lacoste recently confirmed he is the godfather in an interview with The Sunday Times.

Palmero also claimed he was tasked with handling the salaries of UK-based Coste's employees, covering everything from accommodation to dismissals.

At one point, about 10 years ago, he detailed a purchase of a £6.5million luxury London apartment for Alexandre's mother.

'So that Charlene would not find out, Albert created a trust for which I was the trustee, which means a trusted person,' Palmero continued.

In 2015, Alexandre's mother persuaded Albert to back her fashion business, which was fronted by a shop in London's Knightsbridge, Le Monde said. Palmero noted that it was 'on course [to cost] one million [euros] a year'.

Libération, another of the French newspapers which published excerpts from the series of five notebooks, said the prince had an account at French bank BNP under the name AG for 'Albert Grimaldi'.

The newspaper said the account was used to pay Albert's former mistresses and their children without Charlene knowing.

According to Le Monde, Jazmin, Albert's love child with US estate agent Tamara Rotolo, receives £73,000 every three months - despite not being part of the royal family.

Writing in his notebooks, Palmero noted she was given £4,200 for her 18th and a flat in New York worth £2.6million seven years later.

In September 2020, another putative love child sent a letter. The teenager - aged 15 at the time - is being raised in Brazil and claimed in the handwritten note to have been conceived during a round-the-world love affair in 2004.

The matter was to come to court in Milan, but was dropped. A spokesman for the prince said it was a 'hoax'.

Some of the most potentially damaging comments in Palmero's notebooks refer to Charlene's staff. He alleges she employed nannies and other domestic staff who were illegal immigrants, or living in Monaco illegally.

'Her Serene Highness the Princess makes people work for her who are not compliant,' Palmero warned Albert.

In a letter written in January 2017, he said another employee from the Philippines had been 'illegal for five years', despite being on a one-month tourist visa. 'He gets paid 100 euros a day [£85], which is off the scale,' Palmero wrote.

In December 2014, Charlene gave birth to twins, Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella, and immediately placed them in the care of nannies who Palmero claims were also illegal immigrants.

'Update on the hiring of nannies . . . We are completely illegal (even their tourist visa expired on January 7),' Palmero wrote on January 15 of that year.

In a statement to Le Monde, the prince's lawyers said that if money was paid to illegal migrants, then it was Palmero who had authorised the expenditure.

'They are not only in an illegal situation, but one entered with a false passport,' he added.

Despite this, Mr Palmero released almost £600,000 to celebrate the children's birth and baptism.

Palmero's new book, after his five infamous notebooks, also laid bare the extent of Charlene's unchecked spending.

He reported the princess, who shares twins Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella with Albert, was routinely given an allowance of £1.2million a year - but still managed to overspend.

On one day alone in April 2016, Charlene asked for the equivalent of £66,000, and this was 'definitely too much,' said Mr Palmero, especially as she also planned to rent a second villa on Corsica.

'Isn't that a lot?' asked the accountant, who was concerned that the princess was taking money from funds that were 'undeclared' in terms of tax.

'These practices are dangerous,' Mr Palmero warned.

'They are not only in an illegal situation, but one entered with a false passport, Mr Palmero added.

In 2021, he vetoed new staff hires requested by Charlene, who already had '8.5 people in her service, there have never been so many'.

Palmero also divulged how Charlene poured £826,000 into redecorating her holiday villa in Calvi, on the island of Corsica, along with £860,000 to decorate her office back in Monte Carlo.

Charlene was paying her personal chef the equivalent of £250-a-day from petty cash, said Mr Palmero, while her South African family were also receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds.

In February 2017, the accountant also released the equivalent of more than half-a-million pounds to pay off the princess's overdraft.

In December 2019, an alarmed Mr Palmero noted that Charlene had spent 'around 15 million euros [£13million]', over eight years, despite her allowance being '7.5 million euros' [£6.4million]

The speed at which the mother-of-two apparently burned through money so worried the prince's accountant that he wrote in his notes: 'It's crazy! I have no control over the Princess's spending.'

Albert later said: 'The attacks that Mr Palmero makes against me and against the state of Monaco and its institutions show his true nature and the little respect... he has for the family and the principality.'

Since they were married in 2011, Charlene and Albert's relationship has been dogged by controversy.

The state of affairs significantly worsened when the princess took a prolonged medical hiatus in South Africa, which saw her spend most of 2021 away from her husband and children.

This meant she missed the seventh birthdays of her twins - Jacques and Gabriella - and her tenth wedding anniversary.

Charlene also travelled to a Swiss clinic that allegedly specialises in mental health and addiction issues.

In 2021, the ‘WikiLeaks-style' website Les Dossiers du Roche set off a chain of events leading up to the publication of Palmero’s memoir as Albert’s former right-hand man aims for the heart of the monarchy.

Five years later, it seems Charlene's marriage to Albert might end up the biggest casualty.

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