Princess Charlene of Monaco: The prince, the hush money and the scandal rocking Monaco

Princess Charlene of Monaco and Prince Albert II of Monaco. Photo / Getty Images

This week sees Princess Charlene of Monaco celebrating her 46th birthday, but it’s hardly a time for champagne and streamers. In fact, this is one birthday that the princess will be keen to forget, coming as it does in the midst of a potentially ruinous scandal that has engulfed the royal family.

Financial paperwork released by their former accountant, Claude Palmero, 67, has put a glaring spotlight on the princess’s spending – and it makes for embarrassing reading indeed, with revelations about her spiralling six-figure annual allowance and the claim that she hired illegal immigrants. (The family’s lawyer, Maître Jean-Michel Darrois, has refuted Palmero’s allegations.)

Excerpts from Palmero’s accounts, which he recorded in five secret notebooks during his two-decade stint as the family’s property manager, as well as his explosive commentary, have been published in the French newspapers Le Monde and Libération. It’s the ultimate act of revenge following Palmero’s dismissal by the royal family last year.

Palmero told Le Monde: “This whole affair revolves around the corruption I’d been denouncing with increasing force for years”, adding: “It was necessary to remove me with great fanfare.”

Princess Charlene of Monaco and Prince Albert II. Photo / AP

But Monaco’s rulers will likely rue the day that they let Palmero go – and left him free to share their incendiary financial secrets with the world.

The astonishing disclosures include Palmero’s claim that Princess Charlene exceeded her £1.28 million annual allowance. Her extravagant spending included £733,000 on doing up her office in her Monte Carlo palace, and a further £705,000 on redecorating her holiday villa in Corsica.

Palmero warned her that these spending practices were “dangerous”, he claims, after jaw-dropping exchanges like one in April 2016 when the princess demanded more than £56,000 in just one day.

The apparently exasperated accountant wrote: “It’s crazy! I have no control over the princess’s spending.” In 2019, he estimated that she had spent about £12.8 million total since her marriage to Prince Albert in 2011.

Scandal upon scandal

That splurging extended to Princess Charlene’s family in South Africa. In December 2022, Palmero claimed that she had demanded £768,000 for her brother, Sean Wittstock, to spend on his house.

But it was a very different story with her staff. Palmero claims that most of her employees were actually illegal immigrants – even the nannies for her twins, Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella, who were born in December 2014. Palmero claims that in January 2015 the nannies’ tourist visa had expired that month, plus “one entered with a false passport”.

Yet Princess Charlene spent nearly more than £500,000 on the twins’ lavish baptism.

Prince Albert II of Monaco and his wife, Princess Charlene, pose with their twins babies, Princess Gabriella, left, and Prince Jacques, right, after their baptism ceremony. Photo / AP

This damaging exposé also includes shocking information about Princess Charlene’s husband, Prince Albert, 65, and his spending.

The current head of Monaco’s Grimaldi ruling dynasty, Albert II, is the son of Rainier III and Hollywood actress Grace Kelly. Yet Prince Albert’s behaviour sounds like a salacious movie. The playboy monarch reportedly had a secret account at the French bank BNP, which was used to pay his mistresses and illegitimate children, while keeping everything hidden from his wife.

He paid £270,000 annually to his two acknowledged love-children: 31-year-old Jazmin Grimaldi, whose mother, Tamara Rotolo, is an estate agent, and 20-year-old Alexandre Coste-Grimaldi, born to the former air hostess Nicole Coste.

Albert's son, Alexandre Coste-Grimaldi. Photo / Instagram

Jazmin Grimaldi. Photo / Instagram

According to Palmero, Prince Albert bought Jazmin a £2.5 million flat in New York. He paid for kidnap and ransom insurance for Alexandre, and he backed Nicole Coste’s fashion business, Wolf & Badger (which has a flagship store in Knightsbridge).

Palmero also claims that he was tasked with unsavoury assignments by Prince Albert like “Mission K”, in 2012, which involved paying off a woman who allegedly had compromising photographs of the prince.

This open feud between the family and the previously loyal Palmero – who succeeded his father, Andre, in managing the royals’ financial affairs – can likely be traced back to the release of the Rock Files by Les Dossiers du Rocher last year.

Prince Albert admitted to a five-year relationship with Nicole Coste. Photo / Getty Images

The WikiLeaks-esque website claimed that four of Prince Albert’s close friends had joined forces to manipulate the property market in Monaco (known colloquially as “the Rock”).

Prince Albert initially backed his men, then changed his mind and dismissed them all: his chief of staff Laurent Anselmi, his lawyer Thierry Lacoste, the president of the supreme court Didier Linotte, and Palmero. In response to the allegations, Prince Albert said: “When questions arise, you need to know how to change the people who surround you to find the right path again and to write a new page in your history ... If confidence evaporates, you can no longer work together.”

Palmero vigorously refuted the charges, even suing Prince Albert for damages, claiming “immense moral damage, injury and disruption to living conditions”. The case is ongoing.

But it turned out that Palmero didn’t need the courts. He has struck a deadly blow instead by sharing intimate secrets about the royal finances – the kind of excruciating revelations that are much more likely to cause lasting harm.

The royal dream that turned into a nightmare

This is the latest in a long line of scandals for Monaco’s controversial ruling pair. Prince Albert met Charlene Wittstock, then an Olympic swimmer, at a swimming meet in 2000 in Monte Carlo.

The future princess told Tatler that she wasn’t “in the emotional place” for a relationship, but that when she met Prince Albert, she “felt a profound sense of destiny”.

However, their royal dream soon turned into a nightmare. Prince Albert was forced to admit the paternity of two love-children, and there were rumours of a third right before the wedding. French media labelled Charlene a “runaway bride” after claiming she reportedly tried to flee Monaco.

But teardrops turned to tears: Princess Charlene was photographed crying after the ceremony. Photo / AP

Their spectacular £53 million wedding did go ahead, in 2011, with Princess Charlene wearing a Giorgio Armani Privé gown decorated with 20,000 pearl teardrops, 30,000 gold stones and 40,000 Swarovski crystals.

But teardrops turned to tears: Princess Charlene was photographed crying after the ceremony. There were then rumours that, on their South African honeymoon, the newlyweds slept apart – in separate hotels.

French journalist Philippe Delorme compared the marriage unfavourably to the fairy tale wedding of Prince Albert’s parents. He said: “The reality is that Albert is a bit overweight, and much less glamorous than his father was. It feels like a love story of an old man and a young woman rather than two young lovers.”

Princess Charlene struggled to adjust to her new life, complaining that she was subject to jealousy from Monaco’s high society, and that no one related to her South African mentality and humour.

The prince and princess were thrilled to welcome their twins on December 10, 2014, giving Albert two official royal heirs. But their marriage has otherwise been beset by crises. Prince Albert faced yet another claim of fathering a love-child in 2020, from a woman who claimed they met in a nightclub in Rio, Brazil, in 2004. The case never went to court, and may have been settled privately.

But it clearly affected Princess Charlene. She subsequently made a shocking appearance, debuting her new punk hairstyle: half of her head closely shaved in a buzz cut, and the rest darkly dyed. It was either a cry for help, or a statement that she would no longer play by the royal rules.

Prince Albert II of Monaco, left, with his wife, Princess Charlene, and their twins, Prince Jacques, right, and Princess Gabriella. Photo / AP

In 2021, Princess Charlene spent 10 months in South Africa, reportedly because of a sinus infection – missing their 10th wedding anniversary. On her return to Monaco, Prince Albert claimed that she was “unwell” and couldn’t carry out official duties. He said that she would be seeking medical treatment, adding defensively that this was not about “problems within [their] relationship”.

But the pair are rumoured to be leading separate lives; friends have said they are strictly a “ceremonial couple”, with Princess Charlene now spending most of her time in Switzerland. If so, that surely adds to Prince Albert’s financial burdens.

Princess Charlene has further fuelled speculation by not wearing her wedding ring while making appearances, and, last year, deleting her personal Instagram account – suggesting she is retreating from public life.

Separate lives

So, will this latest firestorm see the royal marriage rupture for good? Or might it bring the besieged duo back together?

The answer to that probably depends more on money than on undying love. Princess Charlene may well stay with her husband as long as he can keep funding her luxurious lifestyle, and that of her children, though she could cut her losses once the twins have come of age.

She would then be looking at an eye-watering divorce settlement – likely something in the tens of millions. Prince Albert’s net worth is estimated at £787 million, thanks to his land ownership in France and Monaco, and shares in Monaco’s casinos.

Surely even he can’t run through all of that money – although it sounds like he’s doing his best. In the short term, the couple would probably be wise to play happy families and attempt to rehabilitate their public image. In a few years’ time, they could officially separate without compounding the damage.

If there’s one place that you can weather this kind of financial furore, it’s the proud and furtive tax haven of Monaco. But even the Rock’s inhabitants have their limits – and the spendthrift, scandalous royals are severely testing them.