Unmarried Monaco prince acknowledges child

updated 10:10 a.m. ET June 1, 2006

PARIS - Monaco’s Prince Albert II has acknowledged he is the father of a second illegitimate child, a 14-year-old girl living in California, his lawyer said in an interview published Thursday.

Albert, ruler of the tiny Mediterranean principality, “officially recognizes a paternity that was legally established a few weeks ago,” lawyer Thierry Lacoste was quoted as saying in France’s Le Figaro newspaper.

Albert had initially planned to keep his parentage of Jazmin Grace Rotolo secret until she reached adulthood, but “the situation had become untenable for her” in recent weeks amid increasing speculation about her father, Lacoste said.

Monaco’s royal palace refused to comment on the “private affairs of the prince,” spokeswoman Christiane Stahl said.

However, Lacoste’s secretary confirmed Thursday that the lawyer gave an interview to Le Figaro and said his office did not contest the newspaper’s account of his comments. The secretary refused to be quoted by name and said that Lacoste was abroad and unavailable for comment.

French media reports have said Albert had a brief affair with the girl’s mother, Tamara Rotolo, in 1991 when she vacationed on the Cote d’Azur.

No right to family name
The prince’s daughter, who lives in Palm Springs, is welcome in Monaco, Lacoste said, but she cannot take the throne and will not bear the Grimaldi family name. Neither will Albert’s other illegitimate child, 3-year-old Alexandre.

The 48-year-old ruler, who has never married, acknowledged last July that he had fathered the boy out of wedlock with a former Togolese flight attendant.

Last year, Albert told The New York Times that other women had made similar claims. “I don’t know of any others that could be true,” he said.

Rotolo made a paternity claim shortly after the child was born, he told the Times, but after a U.S. court dismissed the case, he thought the matter had gone away. Since the story of Alexandre hit the media, though, he said she had contacted his lawyer again.

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