A 26-year-old former car salesman has officially been recognised as the son of Prince Laurent, ending years of uncertainty over his royal parentage.
A former car salesman has become a Belgian prince after the country’s Prince Laurent legally recognised him as his son.
Clément Vandenkerckhove is 26 years old. Six months ago, he quietly walked into a local town hall and was legally recognized as the son of Belgium’s Prince Laurent. The news is only just starting to leak out to the public.
He will not get a royal allowance. He is not in the line of succession. He will not be doing public royal duties. But on paper, he is officially a prince.
The whole thing started by pure accident. Back in 2013, Clément bumped into the prince at a shopping center and had no idea who he was talking to. It was not until he turned 16 that his mother, a Belgian singer, finally sat him down and told him the truth.
Four years later, he finally picked up the phone and called him. They met up, and the prince suggested a DNA test to be sure.
“We went to the hospital together, and I remember him saying, ‘I’ll go first so you’re feeling at ease’,” Clément recalled. The lab results came back with a 99.5% match.
Despite the royal bloodline, Clément is not changing his last name to the royal Saxe-Coburg. He told a local paper he is proud of his name, and changing it would be a “betrayal of everything my mother has done for me.”
The drama sounds incredibly familiar to anyone watching in Belgium. Prince Laurent’s own father, former King Albert II, was dragged through a massive scandal years ago when he was forced to take a DNA test and admit he had a secret daughter from an affair.
Clément is staying completely out of the palace spotlight. No public duties, no royal money. Just a regular guy who happens to have a crown hiding in his family tree.
