Khaberni - A Belgian young man who used to work as a car salesman has officially become a prince in the Belgian royal family after a DNA test (DNA) confirmed that he is the biological son of Prince Laurent, the brother of King Philippe, in a case that reopened the file "secrets of the royal family", which had seen a similar precedent a few years ago.
A legal acknowledgment after a decade of secrecy
Clément Vandenkerckhove (26 years old) now bears the title of prince after a quiet ceremony held at the town hall about six months ago, after the DNA test confirmed his connection to the royal family, according to Western media outlets this week.
The American network "CNN", quoting the British newspaper "The Telegraph" which first published the news last Wednesday, reported that Prince Laurent has officially registered his paternity for Vandenkerckhove in the Belgian civil registry.
The story began many years ago, as Clément's mother, Belgian singer Wendy Van Wanten (real name Iris Vandenkerckhove), had been in a romantic relationship with Prince Laurent in the 1990s, after a meeting that brought them together by chance at a fashion show in Paris. The relationship did not last long, amid speculation at the time that the former king, Laurent’s father, opposed it.
Van Wanten gave birth to her son in August 2000, but did not reveal his real father's identity until he was sixteen, a full decade before the latest official acknowledgment.
From family acknowledgment to DNA test
In a documentary broadcast by the Belgian network "VTM" last September, Vandenkerckhove recounted how his mother revealed the truth to him and how he contacted Prince Laurent four years later to tell him what he knew. The prince immediately agreed to undergo the DNA test to prove the lineage.
Vandenkerckhove told the same channel that his father accompanied him to the hospital for the test, adding: "I remember he said to me: I'll start first so you can feel comfortable." After the results confirmed paternity, the two parties, according to his description, "had open and candid conversations" that had not been possible before.
Limited rights.. no throne and no royal allowances
The legal recognition grants the new prince equal rights in inheriting the private properties of Prince Laurent, just like his half-siblings: Princess Louise (20 years old), Prince Nicola (20 years old), and Prince Aymeric (19 years old), who are Laurent's children from his wife Princess Claire, whom he married in 2003.
However, this acknowledgment does not grant him any royal financial allowances, nor does it impose on him the undertaking of official duties, nor does it grant him any right to inherit the Belgian throne.
In a striking irony, Vandenkerckhove could have abandoned his family name and instead taken on his father's title "Saxe-Coburg", but he hinted that he would most likely not do so. He previously stated to the Dutch newspaper "Het Nieuwsblad": "I'm proud of the Vandenkerckhove name. To sacrifice this name would be a betrayal of everything my mother did for me."
A precedent not the first in the Belgian palace
This is not the first time that a secret of this kind has come out in the open within the Belgian royal family. The former king, Albert II (currently 92 years old), fought a long legal battle that lasted for years before recognizing in 2020 that he had fathered a daughter out of wedlock.
That case ended with Delphine Boël (58 years old) winning her legal battle, and being granted the title of princess officially, and she now carries the name Delphine de Saxe-Coburg.
Thus, Vandenkerckhove becomes the second case of recognition of royal lineage outside the context of marriage witnessed by the ruling family in Belgium in less than a decade, indicating that stories of secret paternity are no longer a rare exception in the history of European palaces.
