Return of the Monaco curse
It was Monaco alright … the glamour, the gossip, the scandal. And that was just Princess Charlene at the hairdresser. The stylish 42-year-old wife of the principality’s ruler, Prince Albert, emerged into the Mediterranean sunshine sporting what was described as a “garage punk” look, with one side of her familiar blonde bob shaved off and the other chopped into dangling baby-bangs.
Around the wealthy enclave’s gilded salons and afterdecks, the questions were soon flying: What did it mean? Why did she do it? And what would Monaco’s enduring icon of elegance, Grace Kelly, have thought?
A few days later came a possible answer. Albert, 62, had just been served with a paternity suit by a woman who claimed he had fathered her 15-year-old daughter. If true, the dalliance would have happened at a time when Albert and Charlene were already dating.
The Prince issued a strong denial, dismissing the suit as “a blackmail attempt”, but Monaco watchers noted that he had already acknowledged two illegitimate children by different women, both of whom received large settlements. The papers and magazines that obsessively follow the fortunes of the 724-year-old royal family were quick to suggest that Charlene’s new hairdo was
