‘Careless’ Prince recognises second illegitimate child
From Charles Bremner in Paris
PRINCE ALBERT of Monaco will recognise a second illegitimate child, the 14-year-old daughter of a married Californian waitress who visited the Riviera state, according to a French book published today.

Spokesmen for the 48-year-old Prince did not deny the report, which made national news in France yesterday, but said that they had nothing to comment “for the moment”.

The book, by Lena Lutaud and Thiébault Dromard, journalists on Le Figaro, says that lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic are completing an agreement under which Prince Albert will provide for Jazmin Grace, the daughter of Tamara Rotolo, from Desert Springs, California. “Albert and Tamara Rotolo met on the Côte d’Azur in July 1991 where Tamara had come with her husband on holiday .

. . She was married, Albert was careless,” the authors quote a friend of the Prince as saying. The alleged affair lasted two weeks. “Less than four weeks later, in August 1991, Tamara told Albert that she was pregnant.”

Details of the affair surfaced after the Prince, who has never married, hinted last year at the existence of other children. In July, after he recognised that he was the father of a two-year-old boy, the Prince told Larry King on CNN: “I know that there are other people who are in more or less the same situation. We will give them an answer at the appropriate time.”

Alexandre, now 3, was born from the Prince’s relationship with Nicole Coste, a Togolese air stewardess. The authors of The Underside of the Celebrity Press said that Prince Albert’s entourage had assured them that there were no other children. “The dénouement of the affair is very close, after a long legal wrangle which began in 1992, the date of the first demand for child support,” they said. Le Parisien published pictures of mother and daughter on its front page yesterday.

Tamara Grace, who bears the name of the late Princess Grace, who would be her grandmother, is described in the book as “a mature, pleasant and intelligent young girl”.

Under Monaco law, an illegitimate child of the ruler cannot accede to power unless the ruler marries the mother. Under a 2002 succession law, passed before the death last year of Rainier III, Monaco’s throne will pass to Princess Caroline if the Prince dies without legitimate offspring.

Since Alexandre was recognised last year, the Prince’s lawyer has made clear that he has the right to inherit his father’s wealth. Prince Albert’s fortune was estimated by Forbes magazine last year to be $1 billion (£530 million). This placed him sixth in its list of the world’s richest people, ahead of the Queen.

According to the book, the Grimaldi family topped the list of beneficiaries from France’s strict rules against press intrustion. Prince Albert, the Princesses Caroline and Stephanie and other relatives received an estimated total of £345,000 in damages last year.

Source: The Times Online

Here are two pictures of Jazmin (the headline on the first one is incorrect):