{"id":33718,"date":"2026-08-20T20:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T20:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/33718\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T20:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T20:08:09","slug":"belgian-former-car-salesman-26-quietly-becomes-a-prince","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/33718\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgian former car salesman, 26, quietly becomes a prince"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prince Laurent of Belgium celebrates King’s Day on Nov. 15 2024. The prince recognized 26-year-old Clement Vandenkerckhove as his son. File Photo by Olivier Matthys\/EPA<\/p>\n

Aug. 20 (UPI) — Belgium has a new prince after the 26-year-old former car salesman was recognized by the king’s brother as his son.<\/p>\n

Clement Vandenkerkhove reportedly joined the royal family<\/a> in February in a low-key town hall ceremony, which was disclosed Wednesday. The ceremony was required for him to become a prince.\n<\/p>\n

Prince<\/a> Laurent, King Philippe’s younger brother, last year publicly acknowledged Vandenkerckhove, who was born during Laurent’s seven-year relationship with Flemish former model turned singer Iris Vandenkerckhove.<\/p>\n

The younger Vandenkerckhove now has a royal title and a claim to an inheritance after Prince Laurent, 62. He is not included in the line of succession and will not receive a royal allowance.<\/p>\n

Vandenkerckhove told Belgian daily Nieuwsblad<\/a> that he was unsure if he would adopt the royal name of van Saksen-Coburg. “I am proud of the name Vandenkerck\u00adhove,” he said. “Sacrificing that surname would be a betrayal to everything my mother did for me.”<\/p>\n

Vandenkerckhove said he suffered anxiety as a child over his identity.<\/p>\n

“My whole childhood I struggled with the question, ‘Who is my father?’ When I knew, the secrecy weighed heavily on me,” he told the newspaper. “Imagine: You know who your father is, but you aren’t allowed to tell anyone. After school, I became a car salesman. I liked that job and did it well. But panic attacks were destroying me.”\n<\/p>\n

He said the anxiety eased after he established a relationship with Prince Laurent.<\/p>\n

“What matters most to me right now is that I am a son who is allowed to get to know his father,” Vandenkerckhove said, adding that the men share a love of cars.<\/p>\n

Prince Laurent later married British-born Claire Louise Coombs, and they have three children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prince Laurent of Belgium celebrates King’s Day on Nov. 15 2024. The prince recognized 26-year-old Clement Vandenkerckhove as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,192,18231,1164,1165],"class_list":["post-33718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-politics","tag-prince","tag-top-news","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/117129649145178850","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}