RICHARD KAY: Is this Prince Albert’s secret Monaco love nest?

The wedding ceremony was a pageant of lavish extra: the bride in an Armani gown of ivory duchesse silk that exposed her spectacular swimmers’ shoulders and the portly groom in a medal-festooned ceremonial jacket.

A visitor record of royalty and superstar, plus a wide ranging backdrop of Monte Carlo glamour — from the rose-tinted palace rising above the Mediterranean and fireworks within the harbour to Californian supergroup The Eagles as the marriage band — added to the fairytale environment.

But what made this marriage much more outstanding was that it was going down in any respect. Just two days earlier than the ceremony, rumours abounded that Prince Albert of Monaco’s wife-to-be, Charlene Wittstock, a former Olympic swimmer 20 years his junior, had booked a one-way ticket house to her native South Africa.

The tales of the ‘runaway bride’, because the media nicknamed her, stay on-line to at the present time on a number of French shops.

But whereas the wedding of Their Serene Highnesses Prince Albert and Princess Charlene has survived — they mark their thirteenth wedding ceremony anniversary in July and have twins Gabriella and Jacques, now 9 — the rumours refuse to go away.

This week extraordinary claims of Albert’s spending — on his spouse, on his former mistresses and on the youngsters he had out of wedlock — have emerged.

The allegations, revealed by a disgruntled ex-employee who stored meticulous notes of the Grimaldi household payroll, might have far-reaching political and financial penalties for the Principality, which has at all times ferociously guarded its secrets and techniques.

Now, within the newest tranche of drip-fed revelations made to French newspaper Le Monde, comes an eye-popping element. Within six months of that hedonistic, three-day wedding ceremony extravaganza, Albert had apparently instructed his accountant-cum-factotum Claude Palmero to search out him a flat. Discretion, Palmero was advised, was the order of the day.

Quite why the person who guidelines the world’s favorite tax haven wanted such a bolthole just a few streets from the fabulous ‘Pink Palace’, is gripping super-rich denizens fearful their very own sources of wealth could also be revealed on this unprecedented exposé.

Palmero was a robust determine on the coronary heart of the Monaco royal household for greater than 20 years till final summer time, when he was unceremoniously sacked by Albert following claims of monetary impropriety linked to the palace.

Now he’s getting his revenge. For he took with him 5 bulging notebooks by which Albert, 65, emerges as a feeble monarch pushed round by the ladies in his life, together with his sisters Princess Caroline, 67, and 58-year-old Princess Stephanie whom, Palmero says, use the crown jewels as private style equipment.

The astonishing allegations of pay-offs and hush cash have uncovered a seedy underbelly of this manicured nook of the Riviera the place Albert appears to have used his huge fortune to make issues go away. But the revelations additionally shine a lightweight on his marriage.

According to Le Monde, in February 2012, Palmero went on the hunt for a property for his grasp. In the journals he famous: ‘Apartment in town for His Serene Highness. I saw two but they weren’t discreet sufficient.’

Palmero experiences again to the prince, who’s adamant the search goes on: ‘His Serene Highness wants me to continue,’ he notes.

He does so and finds ‘a rare gem’. It is within the incongruously named Beverly Palace, a 12-floor fashionable block of flats which boasts panoramic sea views, a concierge service and what it calls ‘top tier convenience’.

Palmero claims he organized to pay the £3,800 a month hire by way of an organization he created in his personal title — Etoile de Mer (Starfish in English) — in order to not expose the prince to scrutiny.

On March 16 that 12 months Albert is alleged to have visited the flat and accepted its acquisition. Le Monde asks of the possession: ‘Should we see a cause and effect relationship?’ maybe implying the Prince deliberate to make use of the flat for secret liaisons.

Not lengthy afterwards, Palmero tells the paper he was charged with one other much more delicate and confidential job: recovering compromising images of the prince.

Writing on July 17, 2012, Palmero notes: ‘Mission K (photo and negatives)’. Details are sketchy however he says of preliminary contact with the third social gathering: ‘She was able to play a game, keep(ing) the other negatives.’ But all ends nicely. ‘Recovered, the photos will be burned,’ he writes. ‘Serene Highness pleased with the conclusion.’

Albert’s attorneys, it must be stated, have contested these claims. His authorized group advised Le Monde that Palmero had by no means been requested something of the kind by the prince, that he didn’t approve of such steps and, ‘moreover, has never been aware of having been the subject of requests for money in such circumstances.’

Even by the shadowy requirements of Monaco, which has lengthy been a magnet for cash of doubtful origins, the allegations are startling.

The newspaper experiences Palmero claims the sum to get well the pictures was 100,000 euros, or £85,000. The cash got here from a slush fund arrange with the enigmatic acronym ‘DS’, for ‘destination spéciale’.

According to the paper, the ‘DS’ allowed Palmero to pay cash in full discretion with out Monaco’s residents or its governing council being conscious.

Le Monde says it might discover no hint of the particular vacation spot fund within the finances revealed annually by the Principality. Usually round 150,000 euros (£128,000) had been allotted to this fund however some years, Palmero stated, it was as a lot as 600,000 euros (£512,000). His rationalization? ‘My role was limited to scrupulously executing the prince’s choices and implementing his requests in very different, and generally private, areas.’

One of those ‘areas’, he stated, had been funds to cops. Asked why he wanted to do such a factor with its implication of bribery, the previous aide responded: ‘Collecting information about someone is not illegal.’

Because of the prince’s lifestyle, he stated, Albert aroused envy. ‘The prince is constantly solicited, sometimes even by blackmailers,’ he’s reported as saying.

The accountant’s file says the DS fund was partly used to contribute to the eye-watering sums paid to the nannies and academics of Albert and Charlene’s twins. In July 2020, Palmero recorded: ‘Budget for nannies and tutors: 450,000 euros (£380,000) which will be exceeded.’ After conferring with the prince, he provides the DS will meet ‘the difference’.

And then there may be the price of that oh-so extravagant wedding ceremony in July 2011, the place company included Prince Edward and his spouse Sophie, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, the Aga Khan, the then French president Nicolas Sarkozy and fashions Naomi Campbell and Karolina Kurkova.

Palmero stated he feared the ultimate invoice would far exceed the ten million euros (£8.5 million) the federal government had put aside. In the tip the nuptials value round £14 million and the aide famous: ‘The deficit will be taken from DS.’

Such profligacy has lengthy been a function of money-no-object Monaco. With a fortune of over $1 billion, Prince Albert is alleged to be the world’s tenth-richest monarch, a lot wealthier than King Charles.

But the riches haven’t introduced happiness. Indeed most fashionable Grimaldi marriages have ended badly and generally tragically.

Albert’s mom, the Hollywood star Grace Kelly, was killed in a automobile crash in 1982 and his inconsolable father Prince Rainier by no means remarried.

Albert’s elder sister Princess Caroline has been married 3 times. She was divorced from her first husband, playboy Philippe Junot, widowed when her second husband Stefano Casiraghi was killed in a powerboat accident, and is at the moment estranged from her third husband, Prince Ernst of Hanover.

Albert’s youthful sister Stephanie, maybe traumatised from the automobile crash that killed her mom and the hearsay that she (Stephanie) had been driving, went from wild baby and animal activist to sharing a caravan for 2 years with a circus elephant coach. Her two marriages — one to her former palace bodyguard — led to divorce.

As for Albert, he was for a time the goal of rumours about his sexuality due to the absence of girlfriends. But he made up for misplaced time and was linked to a number of the world’s most stunning girls, together with actresses Brooke Shields and Bo Derek.

In 2000 he met Charlene when she took half in a swimming contest in Monaco and so they started seeing one another from 2005.

The prince’s home life, nonetheless, was already difficult. He had a love baby, Jazmin, now 31, with American property agent Tamara Rotolo and one other, Alexandre, born in 2003, by former air hostess Nicole Coste. Palmero’s notebooks have revealed how a lot cash has been lavished on them.

Jazmin reportedly receives £73,000 each quarter and was given a £2.6 million New York flat. Alexandre, in the meantime, is alleged to have kidnap and ransom insurance coverage paid for by Albert, whereas his mom acquired cash for her style enterprise, stated, in 2015, to be ‘on course [to cost] one million [euros] a year.’ Her retailer in Knightsbridge has since closed.

Against such a backdrop any marriage may face challenges, however Albert and Charlene’s has been beset by claims of estrangement. Her absence from quite a few landmark social occasions in Monaco — and her disappearance to her native South Africa for a lot of 2021 after contracting a severe sinus an infection — added to the swirl of rumours.

Some are certain, foolishly, to speak of a household curse however others will say the tales of secret payoffs and slush funds, which have been revealed this week, present a extra compelling view of life in gilded Monaco.