Family portrait: Delphine Boel argued in court for seven years that her father is king

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For almost two years, the artist Delphine Boel has been called Princess Delphine of Belgium, but her name and photograph are still not on the official website of the Belgian royal family. The woman defended her title and her dignity in the courts of various instances, and she had to sue her own father, the former King Albert II.

Delphine Boel was 17 years old when her mother, Baroness Sibylle de Sély-Longchamps, took her to their favorite London restaurant to finally reveal to her daughter the secret of her birth. So the girl, who was brought up in the family of industrialist and steel magnate Jacques Boel, learned that her real father was the heir to the Belgian throne, Prince Albert. Delphine knew him very well. Being an old friend of her mother, Albert often came to visit them, and now the girl understood why. It turned out that the secret romance of her parents lasted 18 years. They met in the early 1960s in Greece, where Sibylle’s father, Count Michel François de Sély-Longchamps, was an ambassador. At that time, both of them were unhappily married: Sibylla with Jacques Boel, and Albert with Paola Ruffo di Calabria, an Italian princess, to whom he had been married since 1959. The baroness first told the story of her romance with the prince and then the king on the air of the Belgian TV channel VRT News on the day when Albert abdicated in favor of his son Philip.

From the very beginning I felt that we were not indifferent to each other. A few months later I was invited to dinner. I was seated next to Albert. I immediately realized that it was set up by him on purpose. Paola was furious. She hit him with her elbow a couple of times. At that moment, I realized that he liked me.

Since then, the baroness and the prince saw each other every day. And although the Belgian media remained silent, the ubiquitous paparazzi tracked down the couple abroad. It got to the point that Albert’s older brother, King Baudouin of Belgium, was forced to intervene. He even tried to put pressure on Sibylla’s father to force her to end her affair with the heir to the throne, but all was in vain. The Baroness was sure that she could not have children, and therefore neither she nor the prince took any precautions, and in 1967 she became pregnant. Albert already had three children, but according to his mother Delphine, he did not perceive the birth of an illegitimate child as a disaster. During the birth, he was in the neighborhood, and gave her a bouquet of flowers.

Despite the fact that the prince did not part with his wife, he constantly participated in the life of Sibylla and her little daughter: he sent them gifts and postcards, visited them in a Belgian apartment and went on vacation with them. At some point, according to the baroness, Albert was even going to leave his wife. He offered Sibylle and the child to move with him to London, but she dissuaded him from this step, which could turn into a political disaster for the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty. For the same reason, the baroness was silent about who the father of her child was, and recorded her daughter in her husband’s surname – Boel. And Delphine herself, having learned in 1985 that she had been deceived all her life, understood that her duty to the Belgian monarchy, of which she is a part, was to keep her family relationship with Crown Prince Albert secret. She recalled in an interview with American Vanity Fair:

I had to protect, first of all, my father. I had to protect my mother. And I had to protect my country. Because if it became known that I exist and that I was born out of wedlock, there would be a big scandal, and my father, who comes from a Catholic family, would probably lose his right to the throne.

I started dating at 18 and the boys would ask, “Who is your father, what does he do?” At this point, you either change the subject of the conversation, or you cheat. I do not like to lie.

Even her common-law husband Jim O’Hairy, from whom Delphine gave birth to two children, Josephine and Oscar, did not know the truth. In 1999, a book about Queen Paola was published in Italy, in which there was literally one line that King Albert II had an illegitimate daughter. This was enough for the press and opponents of the monarchy to raise a fuss. The next day, the British The Times came out with a huge photo of Delphine and the headline “The love child of the King of Belgium lives in London” on the front page.

Delfina by this time had already become a fairly well-known artist and sculptor. But after the publication of the book, her life changed dramatically. She was not officially recognized by the Belgian royal family, which means she was not supposed to be guarded. This was used by the paparazzi, who did not let her pass, and ordinary citizens who wanted to inform her of their attitude to the fact of her existence. The creators of the recently released film “Dolphin: The Secret Princess” recalled that, instead of recognizing Albert’s paternity, the press service of the Belgian royal court described publications about her as “malicious gossip.”

In 2001, 33-year-old Delfina called the king. To her great amazement, he said that he was not her father, despite years of association with her and her mother. This not only became a personal tragedy for the artist, but also left an imprint on her professional life. In 2003, she moved to Brussels with her common-law husband and their children Josephine and Oscar. But it was very difficult to achieve success at home. Exhibitions of her works were canceled for no apparent reason, they tried not to invite her to public events so as not to displease the monarch. In the end, Delphine’s patience reached its limit. She sued the children of King Albert II to force them to undergo a DNA test. And in 2013, when the monarch abdicated in favor of his son Philip, he automatically lost his legal immunity. And then she got the opportunity to file a lawsuit directly against him – to achieve official recognition of her royal lineage.

Delphine always said that she was not interested in the financial side of the issue – her stepfather Boel’s fortune is estimated at a billion dollars, and this is more than she could inherit as one of the four children of the Belgian monarch. The “Secret Princess” wanted justice and an apology for the years of humiliation, as well as the title that is due to her by birth. But, to the delight of the European yellow press, the ex-king had very good lawyers, and the process in the courts of various instances with the “grinding of the bones” of the members of the royal family lasted for seven whole years. It ended with the fact that the court ordered Albert to undergo a DNA test. The former monarch resisted, but was forced to give in to the demands of justice. In January 2020, his lawyers issued a statement saying: “Genetic studies indicate that Albert II of Belgium is the biological father of Mrs. Delphine Boel.”

In October of the same year, the daughter met him and his wife Paola in their Brussels palace. Peace was made between them. Delphine and her children Josephine and Oscar became royalty, princesses and a prince, instead of a surname they now use the name of the dynasty – Saxe-Coburg. But at the same time, she does not live on taxpayer money, but earns it with her own labor, therefore, unlike her brother King Philip, sister of Princess Astrid and brother of Prince Laurent, she enjoys a certain freedom of action. She prefers not to talk about her relationship with her newfound father. But about how King Philip reacted to the new sister, she told Vanity Fair magazine:

My brother Philip, who is a king, is very supportive of me. For them, this is an exciting situation, because a new relative has appeared, also representing the Belgian royal family. And if I do something stupid, it will cast a shadow on them. So I guess I scare them sometimes. But I think over time my family will understand that I am a serious person. And a little of my brightness and my individuality and artistry is only good for them. I hope they appreciate it. But now this time has not yet come, they cannot wholeheartedly say: “Yes, it’s great!”. You know, it’s a completely different world…