Anthony L. Hall is a descendant of the Turks & Caicos Islands, international lawyer and political consultant - headquartered in Washington DC - who publishes his own Internet Weblog at www.theipinionsjournal.com offering commentaries on current events from a Caribbean perspective

Therefore, I am obliged to present this commentary on HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco - a reckless, self-indulgent, sex-obsessed Mama’s boy - with an acute affliction of jungle fever - who has been exposed, yet again, as insufferable cad.

Yesterday, international tabloids from Le Parisien to The New York Post ran banner headlines revealing scandalous details about how this randy bachelor-prince (48) deployed his royal prerogatives to seduce and impregnate married California waitress Tamara Rotolo, when she visited his principality with her husband in July 1991.  But, to appreciate the measure of this prince, all one needs to know is that from the time this starry/money-eyed waitress informed Albert that she was pregnant (“Less than four weeks later, in August 1991”) until this year, he used a school of high-priced lawyers to protect his secret and, incomprehensibly, deny his daughter (mercurially named Jazmin Grace) child support.  Moreover, that only after two investigative reporters from Le Figaro, Lena Lutaud and Thiébault Dromard, threatened to out him in their forthcoming book on his dalliances did Albert decide to finally honor his paternal obligations to provide for his daughter.

However, despite misguided speculation (and unseemly jubilation) in Jazmin’s hometown of Desert Springs, California, Albert’s belated concession neither confers upon her the royal title “Princess” nor places her in the line of succession to the Monegasque Throne.

At any rate, this brings me to the even more scandalous (dark) secret which compelled Albert’s first admission of pedestrian paternity just over one year ago.  Of course, I dutifully commented on this truly sensational revelation on my weblog when it broke and, with your indulgence, it seems fitting to append that commentary in its entirety here for your edification:

Monaco’s (and Europe’s) first Black Prince?

HSH Prince Albert II, the absolute ruler of the Monegasque Royal Family of Monaco, is as confirmed a skirt-chasing bachelor as Warren Beatty was until -- at the (evidently still virile) age of 55 -- he was domesticated by Annette Benning. (Now, instead of skirts, he’s chasing 4 kids….) Unlike Beatty, however, it seems Prince Albert was not too concerned about planting his seed in whomever he laid. But an intriguing feature of the Prince’s sexual predilections is the jungle fever that has driven him on occasion to seek pleasure in the ample bosom of Nubian commoners. And the curious synergy between his carelessness and taste led to the inevitable consummation that was revealed last week: Prince Albert has sired a son who, alas, is illegitimate in more ways than one—born out-of-wedlock and also black!

The proud Mummy is Nicole Coste. She’s a former flight attendant from the African country of Togo. And she rejects, with justified indignation, any notion that she’s just a fly-by-night girl who caught an unsuspecting Prince in a baby trap.

Indeed, Ms Coste seems to have given the Prince such royal satisfaction during his exotic booty calls that, after just a few assignations in 1997, he offered her a more suitable job as his mistress and provided her with commensurate accoutrements -- including an elegant Parisian pied-ŕ-terre befitting her new station in life.

It redounds to her dubious honor, therefore, that she endured 6 years of servicing the Prince before (lo and behold) God blessed her with child. And really, all things considered, could it have happened to a more deserving damsel in distress and her promiscuous Prince?

But like all mistresses, Ms Coste craves legitimacy and her son Alexandre gives her a legitimate claim. After all, it’s been almost 2 years since his birth and Prince Albert persists in treating their son (his presumed heir) like a dark (and shameful) secret. And, in these circumstances, no one can deny that anything she can do to honor her son would be entirely warranted. Because, where she had no reason to suspect that Prince Albert would ever marry her, she has just cause to demand that he honors their son’s birthright.

Unfortunately, the Prince seems determined to treat his only son as merely a financial obligation. Indeed, in response to last week’s revelation, Prince Albert announced that he shall erase all doubts about the line of succession in his Principality by anointing Prince Andrea, the eldest son of his sister Caroline, as his rightful heir.

Alas, given Prince Albert’s sovereign immunity, there seems little or nothing Ms. Coste can do to compel him to recognize Alexandre -- beyond providing common law child support which he has apparently consented belatedly to do on rather generous terms. But the unpardonable slight of his son can only come back to haunt Prince Albert in years to come. Indeed, some of the foreseeable issues include:

• What kind of relationship does Prince Albert intend to have with his son? (Clearly mere financial support does not a father make.) And, does he really want to be known to the world as a man who would treat his own flesh and blood as nothing more than a financial obligation?
  
  
• What will he say when Alexandre confronts him with the inevitable and indispensable question of race: Daddy, would you have banished and disinherited me if I were white?
  
  
• What will this do to Prince Albert’s carefully cultivated image as the now reigning patron of the Princess Grace Humanitarian Award and the Monaco World Music Awards? Indeed, will black superstars like Seal, Whitney Houston and Ziggy Marley still be willing to heed the Prince’s call for music to “unite our humanity”?
  
  
• And, will he allow Alexandre to call himself a “Prince” of Monaco (like his cousin Prince Andre and the other males of his generation who were born to the Grimaldi family)?
  
  
• And, finally, should he ever follow Beatty’s lead by marrying and having more children in his later years, will he disinherit Prince Andrea and make one of his own legitimate (and presumably white) children his heir apparent?

A few months later, in July 2006, I published the following update to this commentary:

Unfortunately, Albert has decided that his son’s royal birthright will be neither conferred nor recognized. This is Europe after all. And, despite their cosmopolitan pretensions (and the predilection of their men for sex with black women), the Hohenzollern, d’Orleans, de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias, Windsors and other European royals remain so provincially racist that the prospect of a black prince in their midst is simply too scandalous even to countenance. (Of course, inbreeding and consorting with Nazis and Fascists are fine....But this!?)

Therefore, in issuing his decree, Albert eagerly assured his peers that whilst he acknowledges his bastard son, this black prince “would not be in line to the throne and would not have the name Grimaldi”.

Crisis averted -- for now....

NOTE: King Henry VIII defied the Pope for his mistress. And King Edward VIII defied his country (and abdicated) for his mistress. Yet, Prince Albert II could not defy petty-minded European bigots for his mistress or, more importantly, to honor his own flesh and blood:
 
Prince Albert II of Monaco, a royal coward indeed!