{"id":33760,"date":"2026-08-21T00:32:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T00:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/33760\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T00:32:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T00:32:56","slug":"once-secret-son-of-belgiums-prince-laurent-becomes-a-prince-at-age-26-with-legal-recognition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/33760\/","title":{"rendered":"Once-secret son of Belgium’s Prince Laurent becomes a prince at age 26 with legal recognition"},"content":{"rendered":"

The once-secret son of a Belgium royal has been legally recognised, becoming a prince at age 26.<\/p>\n

Prince Laurent of Belgium reportedly established legal ties to his son, Cl\u00e9ment Vandenkerckhove, at a town hall ceremony six months ago, although details have only just emerged.<\/p>\n

While he formally becomes a prince, the former car salesman will not receive a royal allowance, the BBC <\/a>reported.<\/p>\n

The official recognition was first reported by Belgian weekly news magazine Soir Mag,<\/a> which said the new prince would receive an equal share of his father’s inheritance as a result of the legal change.<\/p>\n

Mr Vandenkerckhove told the outlet he did not care for the law’s technicalities, but rather the “chance to get to know his father”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Prince Laurent has three other children with his wife, Princess Claire of Belgium. (Reuters: Francois Lenoir)<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old is the son of the brother of King Philippe and model-singer Wendy Van Wanten.<\/p>\n

His royal parentage has long been the subject of rumours.<\/p>\n

Mr Vandenkerckhove \u2014 who was born in 2000 \u2014 bears a physical resemblance to Prince Laurent, his name has been interpreted as a reference to Prince Laurent’s Tervuren home, Villa Cl\u00e9mentine, and Van Wanten had also dropped hints in her songs.<\/p>\n

However, his existence was only recognised last year by Prince Laurent, who said the pair had “spoken openly and honestly about this in recent years”.<\/p>\n

Belgium’s King Albert hands power over to son Philippe<\/a><\/p>\n

Belgium’s King Albert has abdicated in favour of his son, Philippe, after 20 years on the throne.<\/p>\n

At the age of 16, Mr Vandenkerckhove found out that Prince Laurent was his biological father.<\/p>\n

He said he was 20 when he reached out to the prince.<\/p>\n

“My entire childhood, I struggled with the question ‘Who is my father?’ When I found out, the secrecy weighed incredibly heavy,” he told Flemish newspaper Het Nieuwsblad <\/a>earlier this month.<\/p>\n

“Imagine this: you know who your father is, but you aren’t allowed to tell anyone.”<\/p>\n

Mr Vandenkerckhove noted he was likely to keep his own surname rather than accept his father’s name, Saxe-Coburg.<\/p>\n

“Giving up this family name would be a betrayal of everything my mother has done for me,” he added.<\/p>\n

Prince Laurent has three other children with his wife, Princess Claire of Belgium, whom he married in 2003.<\/p>\n

In 2020, his father, King Albert II, also recognised an illegitimate child after a long legal battle waged by now-Princess Delphine.<\/p>\n

Albert II abdicated as king of the Belgians in 2013 as the paternity issue became a scandal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The once-secret son of a Belgium royal has been legally recognised, becoming a prince at age 26. Prince…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,18192,16414,18240],"class_list":["post-33760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-clement-vandenkerckhove","tag-prince-laurent","tag-wendy-van-wanten"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/117130691048730384","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33760","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=33760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}