Charlene she is a reserved, discreet princess, very careful to measure her words in every rare interview she grants. She has never gone unnoticed her rather cold attitude in public, her expression on the border between seriousness and sadness. Her sometimes gloomy gaze, at least in appearance, is almost as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s smile. Indeed, much of her existence in the Principality of Monaco is studded, if not by mysteries, however by oddities to which the tabloids have never been able to give a certain explanation, starting with the first night of the honeymoon.
Separate hotels
Last July 9, the Daily Mail recalled a curious anecdote about the honeymoon in South Africa of Albert and Charlene of Monaco, who got married on July 1, 2011: “[La coppia] chose to celebrate the wedding…sleeping 10 miles away in separate hotels”. Very unusual for two newly weds. The newspaper explained that, after their arrival in Durban, the princes went together to the meeting with President Jacob Zuma, but after the hearing they would leave in different cars. Prince Albert is said to be heading to the Hilton Hotel in Durban, LA Princess Charlene all’Oyster Box Hotel a Umhlanga.
Needless to say, this story aroused many perplexities: someone thought that Their Serene Highnesses were already in crisis. He was Charlene’s father, Mike Wittstockto intervene to silence the gossip: “This [è accaduto] because Alberto attended a conference for the International Olympic Commitee at the Hilton. The conference started at 7 in the morning and Alberto didn’t want to get up unnecessarily early and get stuck in traffic”. A source from Palazzo Grimaldi pointed out: “For practical reasons it was better” for Alberto to stay at the Hilton.
A logical reasoning, but a question is equally logical: why wouldn’t Charlene have gone to the Hilton with the prince? No one has ever given an explanation. But the Daily Mail reported another interesting fact: the holiday in South Africa it would not have been the princes’ first “attempt” at a honeymoon.
After the wedding, Alberto and Charlene would have tried to travel to the country for the first time, but the stay would have been abruptly interrupted by the news of the existence of a third, presumed natural son of the prince (although the Journal du Dimanche had spoken of two possible illegitimate children , one of which, it seems, was not yet born at the time of his marriage to Charlene). Indeed Albert of Monaco he had already recognized, in 2005, Alexandre Grimaldi-Coste, born from the relationship with the former Air France hostess Nicole Coste and, in 2006, Jazmin Grace Grimaldi, daughter of the American real estate agent Tamara Rotolo.
Alberto, having been warned of the matter, would have returned immediately to the Principality to take a DNA test. The situation, hypothesizes the Daily Mail, may have compromised the stability of the couple from the first days of marriage, affecting the second trip to South Africa, during which Charlene and Alberto would have slept in separate hotels. Taking into account all these alleged facts, it is understandable that the press at the time had doubts about the holding of this couple. The story of the different hotels only heightened suspicions. Not even the words of Charlene’s father and the spokesperson were entirely convincing. Among other things, there had been two other rather strange precedents in this princely union: the tears of Charlene and the alleged attempts to escape before the wedding.
Escape attempts and tears
Before the wedding Charlene would have tried to escape three times, one of which would have happened even two days after the ceremony, another during the Formula 1 Grand Prix. Destination South Africa. The princess, angry and offended by Alberto’s sentimental scandals, with so many children whose paternity had to be ascertained, would have decided that her life in her palace was not for her, not under those conditions, at least. The security of the Principality, however, would have always managed to block her and it is said that she would have even been requisitioned passport.
The Grimaldis would have managed to convince Charlene to desist from her intention to escape with a prenuptial agreement, revealed the Daily Mail: the princess would have been free to leave only after having given a legitimate heir to the family (by law natural children cannot aspire to the throne Monegasque). This indiscretion is not very reliable, given that the princes had two children, but Charlene, at least officially, is still married to Alberto.
But on the wedding day His Serene Highness she couldn’t hold back her tears in front of 850 guests and photographers. At the end of the ritual, just before placing the bouquet in front of the altar of Santa Devota, patron saint of the principality and of the Grimaldi family, Charlene abandoned herself to tears that many of her found incomprehensible. Alberto handed her a handkerchief, reproaching her in a low voice.
We can say that the attempts to escape from the Monegasque court and the tears Are they indications of evident unhappiness? The hypotheses are different, but in 2013 it was Charlene who denied the reconstructions of the media, recounting those days in an interview with the Times. She called everything written about her and her marriage “lies” adding: “It was all shocking, there were mixed emotions because of the gossip, the tension built until I burst into tears. And then I cried even more because I was like, ‘Oh no, the whole world saw me cry.’” It would not have been Alberto’s alleged infidelities that made Charlene suffer, only her pressure which had become intolerable.
The mystery continues
The spotlights turned back on Charlene in March 2021, when she traveled to South Africa to attend the funeral of the king of the Zulu Goodwill Zwelithini. It was supposed to be a trip of a few days, but for the princess it turned into an obligatory stay of about eight months due to an otorhinolaryngological infection. The disease forced her to undergo three operations on her head (but according to some reconstructions there may even have been a fourth operation).
The situation seemed serious from the first months, but there was no shortage of inferences about a possible separation from Alberto, for some the real cause of Charlene’s departure. It must be said, however, that in the photos of her published on her profile Instagram in August 2021, when her husband and children visited her, the princess appeared debilitated. She was only the shadow of her beauty left and she also spoke of a strong weight loss caused by the infection.
At the end of that year Charlene would be admitted to the Swiss clinic Kusnacht Practice. Someone said it was needed for rehabilitation, someone else was sure that the princess should cure one dependence from drugs. It was even speculated that His Serene Highness had been disfigured after a cosmetic surgery operation. On 12 March 2022, all these indiscretions were silenced, at least temporarily, by a statement announcing the return of Alberto’s wife to the Palazzo.
Slowly a new life began for Charlene, made up of worldly commitments and very elegant clothes that projected her into the firmament of royal fashion icons. The gossip about the alleged wreck of her marriage, however, has never really stopped. In May 2022, the magazine Voici claimed that the princess had entered into an agreement with her husband before returning to her Principality: she would save her appearances and perform her public duties only in exchange for 12 million euros a year. News, this, never confirmed or denied.
Charlene, however, decided to respond to the gossip. In the same month, during the Montecarlo Fashion Weeksays al Nice Matin: “[La mia salute] it is still fragile…Alberto supported me enormously…”. Regarding the rumors of a possible divorce, the princess replied: “It is unfortunate that some media are peddling this gossip about my life, about my couple. We are human beings like everyone and like everyone we have emotions and fragility “.
Yet in March 2023 the magazine Royauté returned to office with the hypothesis of the separation, promptly denied by a spokesman for the Grimaldi, quoted by the Daily Mail: “I would like to officially deny the malicious gossip spread by the French magazine Royauté. Please ignore this article, which is totally unsubstantiated.”
Even that wasn’t enough. In July 2023, the rumors about the life of the princess returned to fill the pages of the tabloids with two new, apparent oddities: for the 12th wedding anniversary, last July 1st, Charlene did not write any social messages (but she is certainly not obliged to do it). Furthermore, after a last engagement on June 20, at the Golden Nymphs Award in Montecarlo, for about a month her Serene Highness disappeared from the public scene. Alberto, on the other hand, always had a busy schedule and was even spotted at the tennis championship in Wimbledon 2023, but without his wife. Social networks and newspapers began to wonder where Charlene had gone and if this new, prolonged absence was the beginning of a new enigma. Luckily that wasn’t the case: the princess, very elegant in a black leather dress by Akris, reappeared in public last July 17 at the Club Allemand International de Monaco gala at the Paris Montecarlo hotel.