After years denying his blood ties, a DNA analysis reveals that the former monarch is the father of the artist Delphine Boel, the result of his extramarital relationship with Sybille de Selys Longchamps.
The move of Paola and Alberto from Belgium to disinherit Delphine, the illegitimate daughter of the king
Alberto II of Belgium admits the paternity of the sculptor Delphine Boël
The baroness Sybille of Selys Longchamps was only a woman in her twenties, but she was already married for four years with a renowned industrial engineer when, taking advantage of the summer of that June 1966, she decided to spend time with her father, Belgian ambassador to Greece . He had 25 springs, had no children and had spent his life traveling the world thanks to the work of his father.
By those same dates, the young Belgian Alberto, brother of the monarch of Belgium , traveled on vacation to Athens. He was 32 years old and had been married to Italian Donna Paola Ruffo di Calabria since 1959. The royal couple had three children, and few aspirations to inherit the Belgian throne then occupied by King Baudouin , as there were hopes that he had heirs-children.
Both had a "sad and difficult married life," at that time, according to Sybille's words in an interview with the Belgian press. They agreed, Alberto decided to spend the rest of his vacation in Athens. "He asked me to dance, and then he told me that he had fallen in love with me. I replied that it was ridiculous," says the aristocrat.
Married both, they chose to continue with their life after that summer. But, approaching Christmas of the same year, friends they had in common brought them together again. That was the fuse that triggered a relationship of forbidden love that would last almost two decades .
In February 1968, the fruit of the forbidden love was born: little Delphine. Sybille decided to separate from her husband, pack up and move to the Belgian municipality of Uccle, near her lover.
Alberto told the truth to Paola, who already knew he was a don Juan - and she also had their stories out of wedlock - so, for their interest, the couple did not take the step of breaking their relationship. The prince maintained a double life: the officer, with his wife, and the unofficial, with Sybille and his daughter , whom he visited every day, sent Christmas and birthday gifts and went with them on vacation. Delphine saw him as "a friend of mom" and, affectionately, called him "Papillon", butterfly in French.
In the mid-70s, Sybille is overcome for so many years living in secret and begins to organize to leave Belgium. Alberto promises that if he stays, he will divorce Paola and move to live with them. And he begins to fulfill his promise: he mobilizes his lawyers to negotiate the separation, he gets the approval of King Baldwin and the prime minister, Leo Tindemans , but the negotiations with his wife end in compromising conditions. Paola would stay with the children, and Alberto could only see them alone, without his lover, and he would lose his right to the throne . "That broke my soul. The children were still small at that time. I would be the bad guy in the story," Sybille said. A few days after signing, she asked him to cancel the divorce and in 1977 he went to London with his daughter.
Although he never agreed with that decision, he kept visiting her and installed a direct telephone line between his residence and hers. Even when she married the British Michael-Anthony Tathmore Cayzer in 1982, the romance remained alive for another two years. In 1984, Paola and Alberto make peace, the prince ends 18 years of extramarital affairs and closes the telephone line.
When little Delphine turned 17, her mother told her the truth about her father's identity, although they didn't make it public. In 1990, Sybille's husband dies and she returns to Belgium. And while they tried to turn the page away from reality, Delphine's father became Albert II, king of Belgium.
In full preparation for the wedding of the year of the firstborn and crown prince Philip with the young Belgian Matilde, the book that changed everything was published. The biography 'Paola. From 'la dolce vita' to queen ', by the flamenco journalist Mario Danneels , brought to light Delphine's existence. Alberto II's reaction was to break contact with his daughter. She called him to ask for explanations. "I don't want you to call me again. And you're not my daughter," the monarch answered and hung up the phone.
Delphine Boël, who used her mother's first husband's last name, knew that her war against a king was lost, so she waited until, in 2013, Alberto II decided to abdicate her son Felipe , to go to court. Since he was no longer head of state, he could not invoke his inviolability, so in 2018, a judge from Brussels demanded that the ex-monarch submit to it, which revealed that they are father and daughter. A forced confirmation that arrived this week, 51 years after the birth of the artist.
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