SHE wasn’t exactly a stranger to the spotlight when she met her future husband. As an athlete competing on the world’s stages, she knew what it was like to be under pressure to perform for a crowd.
But Charlene Wittstock could never have imagined just how much she’d be in the limelight when she lost her heart to one of the most eligible bachelors in the world – who just happened to be a prince.
Yet Charlene is holding her own in a world most ordinary people can’t relate to. The golden girl raised in Benoni now lives in a centuries-old palace situated on the glittering shores of the Mediterranean. Life is a medley of glittering galas, charity events and raising the future leader of Monaco and his twin sister.
‘I’ve reached a point where I know what I like and what works’
– PRINCESS CHARLENE ON HOW SHE’S TRUSTING HER FASHION SENSE
But the 45-year-old, who became Her Serene Highness in 2012, is as down to earth as ever and never forgets her roots.
HER BACKGROUND
Charlene Lynette Wittstock was born on 25 January 1978 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, to Michael Wittstock, a sales manager, and Lynette, a former competitive diver and swimming coach.
When Charlene was 12, she relocated with her parents and brothers, Sean and Gareth, to South Africa. They settled in Benoni in Gauteng.
It was while attending Tom Newby Primary School in Benoni that she first displayed her incredible swimming talent. She started swimming competitively as a teenager and by the time she was 19 she’d won gold in backstroke at the 1997 South African national championships, silver in the freestyle and was named Best Female Swimmer of the tournament.
From then
