The Brussels palace reports that Princess Delphine de Saxe-Cobourg, the secret princess of Belgium has met former king Albert for the first time since her legal battle to be accepted as his daughter A photograph distributed with the announcement shows Princess Delphine de Saxe-Cobourg, sitting smiling alongside Albert II and his wife, Queen Paola, in their Brussels residence.
Delphine, now a 52-year-old artist, was the child of an affair the former king of the Belgians had with a Baroness, and he long refused to recognise her.
But, after a long legal battle for recognition, the princess has been allowed to adopt his family name and has begun to build a relationship with the royal family.
He was obliged to undergo a DNA test in 2019 following a long legal battle with the woman who had insisted for years she was his daughter.
The test confirmed he was indeed Delphine’s biological father, which he had refused to admit since the revelation in 1999 of an old extramarital affair.
A Belgian court ruled on October 1 that the artist — who was partly raised in Britain and has an American husband can indeed adopt her father’s name and call herself a princess.
Her two children, Josephine and Oscar, are now also a princess and a prince.
