On Thursday, Prince Albert II, Monaco’s head of state, appeared on BBC World News to discuss his efforts to protect global marine ecosystems through Monaco Ocean Week, a weeklong virtual conference that spotlights activism and new initiatives. But as a European royal—one of the wealthiest, according to the Times—and seventh cousin of Queen Elizabeth, it was inevitable that the conversation would eventually turn to his extended family. When presenter Yalda Hakim mentioned Oprah’s headline-grabbing interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Albert responded with a surprising amount of candor.
“It’s very difficult to be in someone’s place. I can understand the pressure that they were under, but I think this type of public display of dissatisfaction, to say the least, these types of conversations should be held within the intimate quarters of the family,” said the 63-year-old son of American actress Grace Kelly. “It doesn’t really have to be laid out in the public sphere like that. It did bother me a little bit. I can understand where they’re coming from in a certain way, but I think it wasn’t the appropriate forum to be able to have these kinds of discussions.”
Albert, who made headlines in March 2020 as an early European royal to contract COVID-19, might actually know what he’s talking about when it comes to dealing with family drama. In the 1980s and 90s, Albert developed a reputation for “dating instead a string of inappropriate types,” as Vanity Fair put it in 1987, but in the mid-2000s Albert revealed that he had secretly fathered two children, who were not in the line of succession because he was not married to their mothers. He became the ruler of Monaco when his father, Rainier III, died in 2005. After decades of concern that he might not provide the throne with an heir, in 2011 he married his wife, Princess Charlene, despite tabloid reports that she tried to flee the country before the wedding happened. Throughout it all, he seems to have actually stayed close to the British royal slogan of “never complain, never explain” in a way the Windsors themselves have never completely managed.
At the same time, Albert has first-hand experience with the doggedness of the British press and his own story might be proof that a hope for settling things behind closed doors might be impossible. In 2005, the Mail on Sunday reported that Albert had a then-13-year-old daughter named Jazmin Grace Grimaldi, whose mother, Tamara Rotolo, once sued the prince over paternity in California family court. “The prince privately has never disputed that she is his daughter,” a friend of Albert told the tabloid. “But while his father was alive he told Tamara he couldn’t publicly acknowledge her. Tamara’s dream is that now Rainier is dead, that will change.” The next year, Albert publicly admitted that Grimaldi was his daughter, and she visited him Monaco.
Albert is not the only European royal to condemn Meghan and Harry for sitting down with Oprah. Austria’s Archduke Karl von Habsburg, a distant relative of the Windsors, told Royal Central that he thought Harry’s low position on the line of succession made the international broadcast inappropriate. “If there are actually problems or dissonances in the private sphere, then it would be more appropriate to discuss and clarify such things specifically in a private setting,” he wrote in a statement. “For me this media-staged appearance is a non-issue. It is only internal gossip and garbage.”
When Hakim asked Albert if he had any advice for Harry, the ruler of Monaco was vague. “It’s a difficult world out there,” he said, “but I hope he can have the wisdom and judgement to make the right choices.”
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