Mystery still shrouds missing Princess Charlene

The British royal family might get all the attention as a 1000-year-old institution, but the house of Grimaldi can give them a serious run for the historic stakes. In 1297, Francesco Grimaldi, a member of a wealthy Genoese merchant family, claimed the Rock of Monaco, a tiny sliver of land on the Mediterranean, and to this day, his descendants rule over the minute but obscenely wealthy city-state.

While it might be the house of Windsor and their various travails that hog the headlines but to the east, their royal counterparts are also in the midst of an ongoing crisis and PR disaster with a princess having gone missing from public life in a swirl of controversy and drama.

Yesterday, ruler Prince Albert appeared in the window of the palace, as per usual, to mark the festival of the patron saint of the city, along with his adorable twins Princess Gabriella and Prince Jacques (the latter who will succeed his father). But there by his side wasn’t the prince’s wife of ten years Princess Charlene but his sister Princess Caroline.

On January 25, Charlene, a former Olympic swimmer-turned-royal marked her 44th birthday yet there was no sign of her in Monte Carlo or with her family. Rather, the princess has essentially disappeared, having not been seen in nearly 90 days.

Late last year, 61-year-old Albert confirmed to People that she is currently in a treatment facility, somewhere outside of the microstate, but mystery still surrounds the events of the last year which has seen speculation about mental breakdown, marriage collapse, love children and plastic surgery reach a crescendo.

So, just what the hell has been going on?

Happily-ever-after?

The story of Charlene Wittstock, alleged reluctant royal, really begins in 2000 when the swimming champion pitched up in Monte Carlo for a charity event. There she met Albert, a notorious playboy and a man badly in need of a wife.

Over the course of the next ten years, their relationship progressed, with the couple announcing their engagement in 2010.

However, things started to go off the rails only weeks before the reported $100 million wedding when the French publication Journal du Dimanche alleged that the bride had made multiple attempts to flee, including supposedly seeking refuge in her native South African embassy in Paris where she had her passport taken away and then the following month making a break for the airport in nearby Nice during the city’s Formula One Grand Prix.

The couple denied the reports but the events that followed hardly did much to dissuade people of the notion of a princess trapped in a gilded cage.

Infamously, Charlene cried on their wedding day, with much debate about whether they were tears of joy.

As she settled into royal life, all the waving and charity-doing, things didn’t particularly improve with the newly minted Her Serene Highness Princess Charlene often looking dour and miserable.

Behind the closed doors of the Palais Princier, things were reportedly even worse. One source recently told the Daily Beast about an “extremely uncomfortable” lunch with Albert and Charlene during which she “quietly sobbed her way through the entire meal”.

“Albert didn’t acknowledge his wife was crying at all,” the source said. “I couldn’t understand why she didn’t just get up and leave. I could only assume she wanted her unhappiness to be seen.”

While over in the UK the other new royal wife, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, was charming the pants off her new subjects, in wealthy Monaco, the princess was reportedly greeted with abject snobbery and years of being cold-shouldered in local society.

Her new life might have been glittering, but it was “challenging, painful and solitary,” according to Tatler.

“The people I mixed with in Monaco didn’t relate to my South African mentality or humour,” Charlene admitted in an interview with the society bible. “Although I have met some wonderful people since I’ve been living in Monaco, I regard them all as acquaintances. I only have two people I consider friends here.”

When it was revealed she was pregnant in 2017, one Monacan (yep, really) described Charlene to the Daily Beast as “common as muck” but that “at least she has proved herself capable of reproducing”.

One resident also commented at the time: “A lot of people are hoping she will just stop the plastic surgery now she is finally pregnant.”

“She does not expect to be suddenly warmly welcomed into Monaco society, but she does think that after giving birth – especially if it’s a son — she will be more free to go off and do her own thing,” a member of the European society circuit said at the time. “She has made little secret of the fact she would rather be back in South Africa, or London, or Paris, or anywhere but Monaco.”

More recently, the Times reported last year that she had “lost the trust” of her supposed subjects.

The love child ‘hoax’

Albert, in his single days, was a renowned playboy and has long admitted to fathering, and has supported, two children from previous brief relationships. However, in November 2020, a Brazilian woman living in Italy, whose identity has been kept under wraps, went to court alleging that the royal had fathered her daughter in 2005, that is, at the same time he was dating Charlene.

Lawyers for Albert dubbed the claims a “hoax” and just over two months later on January 26, he and his wife attended an official event together.

Still, days later Charlene attended an official event revealed a dramatic new punk hairstyle with one side of her head shaved.

And then this is where things start to get really murky.

On March 18, she was photographed in South Africa at the memorial for the late Zulu monarch, King Goodwill Zwelithini. A few weeks later, to mark Easter, she posted a photo to her Instagram account showing her painting eggs with her husband and children but there was no indication given when and where the shot was taken.

May and June were red letter months on the Monte Carlo social calendar with the 2.1 square metre mini-nation hosting the Grand Prix and the annual Red Cross ball. Albert attended both alone.

It was only on June 24 that official word came, and from her Princess Charlene Foundation rather than the palace, explaining her extended absence, saying she was suffering an acute ear, nose and throat infection that prevented her from flying.

On July 2, which was the royal duo’s tenth wedding anniversary, the couple was 12,000km apart with Charlene saying that not being with her husband on the day was “difficult” and “saddens me”.

But nothing changed: Charlene remained in South Africa while Albert continued with his duties as sovereign, appearing at the Monte Carlo show jumping event (the Olympics of the horsey set) and then the actual Olympics in Tokyo.

By now, speculation had reached fever pitch in Monaco and neighbouring France that something was very wrong with the royal marriage. Journalist Stéphane Bern, France’s best informed royal commentator, alleged that even before her African trip, she had spent little time in the palace, opting instead for a modest two-bedroom flat that belonged to her sister-in-law Princess Caroline and which was 300 metres away from her official residence.

“We often saw her outside the Palace and she would usually be alone or with a bodyguard,” a source told the Daily Mail, “but she was never with Albert – it was obvious she chose to spend most of her time in the apartment rather than the palace.”

Bern also pointed out that it had not just been Albert at the May Red Cross Ball but that Nicole Coste, a former air hostess and mother of one of his illegitimate children, had also attended.

‘Nearly died’

In August, the princess underwent a four-hour operation and later the same month, Albert, Jacques and Gabriella arrived in South Africa. The photos of the reunion posted by her only amped up the rumour mill, with a shot of her very awkwardly hugging Albert doing nothing to dispel the growing speculation that their marriage had unravelled once and for all.

Then in early September, Charlene collapsed, was rushed to hospital and “almost died,” according to a later report in Page Six.

“It is unfair that she is being portrayed as having some kind of mental or emotional issue,” a source has said. “We don’t know why the palace is downplaying that she almost died in South Africa.

“She has not been able to eat solid food in over six months because of all the surgeries she has since gone through. She has only been able to take in liquids through a straw, so she lost nearly half her body weight.”

(Her sister Chantall later denied the claim, saying “this is simply not true” but that “she had difficulty eating after all the procedures and so yes, she lost a lot of weight, but it was because she could only have soft foods and liquids.”)

In October, the mother-of-two shared a photo of herself wearing a rosary and reading the bible captioned “God bless” and looked increasingly gaunt, and it would only be in November that she would finally return to Monaco, nearly a year after leaving.

She would not be back on Monegasque soil for long.

‘Clear she was unwell’

On November 8 Charlene returned, with her again taking to Instagram to celebrate the “happy day”, however, as Albert later explained, things “went pretty well in the first few hours, and then it became pretty evident that she was unwell”.

It was around then that Albert staged what the Daily Mail has called an “intervention” with her brothers and sister-in-law and it was later revealed that the mutual decision had been made for her to receive treatment in an undisclosed facility for what he has termed “exhaustion, both emotional and physical”.

“She was very calm and very understanding. She realised herself that she needed help. You can’t force anyone to understand that they need treatment, they have to accept that themselves,” Albert told People late last year.

“This has nothing to do with our relationship. I want to make that very clear,” he said. “It’s not a personal relationship issue. And if you want to discuss another speculation, it isn’t related to plastic surgery or facial work at all.

“I can say she was suffering incredible fatigue. She hadn’t slept well in a number of days and she wasn’t eating at all well. She has lost a lot of weight, which made her vulnerable to other potential ailments. A cold or the flu or God help us, Covid.”

Her sister Chantall told You magazine: “She had a lot of procedures in a short space of time. She was under a lot of stress at the time. It was extremely traumatic for her to go through all the pain, procedures, and scrutiny from the media while being away from her family and children. She missed them terribly and it wasn’t easy for her.”

Appearing in the window of the 12th century palace alongside Albert for the National Day on November 19 were little Gabriella and Jacques holding handmade signs reading “We miss you Mommy” and “We love you Mommy.”

Game of thrones

On Thursday, Albert attended the Sainte-Devote church ceremony, the first anniversary of Charlene’s last official appearance. The twins, in co-ordinating navy and red, waved and smiled to the crowds, with their aunt Princess Caroline stepping in as de facto first lady.

One intriguing theory has suggested that the 65-year-old royal herself might have a part to play in this sorry tale.

In 2017, the Daily Beast reported that “part of the problem” was the thrice-married Caroline is widely thought would like to see her eldest son, Andrea, as the next occupant of the Monaco throne and that she had, in the early years, “done little to help Charlene settle in”.

The question is, will Charlene ever return to royal life? While in the UK Prince William and his wife Kate are the picture of the perfect double act, in the French Riviera enclave, which Somerset Maugham famously called “a sunny place for shady people,” there are no guarantees they will ever get their princess back.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as Mystery still shrouds missing Princess Charlene of Monaco