From Wikipedia Part 2
Accession
On April 6, 2005, Hereditary Prince Albert became Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco, upon the death of Prince Rainier III.
The first part of Prince Albert II's enthroning as ruler of the Principality of Monaco was on July 12, 2005, after the end of the three-month mourning period for his father. A morning Mass at Saint Nicholas Cathedral led by the archbishop of Monaco, Monsignor Bernard Barsi, formally marked the beginning of his reign. After the mass, Prince Albert II returned to the royal palace to host a garden party for 7,000 Monegasques born in the principality. In the courtyard of the royal palace, the Prince was presented with two keys of the city as a symbol of his investiture. The evening ended with a spectacular fireworks display on the waterfront.
The second part of his coronation was on November 19, 2005. Albert was enthroned at Saint Nicholas Cathedral. His family was there in attendance, including his elder sister (and now heir) Princess Caroline with her husband Ernst of Hannover and three of her four children, Andrea, Pierre and Charlotte; as well as his younger sister Princess Stéphanie and his paternal aunt Princess Antoinette. Royalty from 16 delegations was present, and there were big festivities in the country. The evening ended with an opera performance in Monte-Carlo.
Albert's reign
Albert continues the policy, initiated by previous rulers of the statelet, of using his position to draw the world's attention to the need to protect the (marine) environment. Just like his great-great-grandfather Albert I he traveled to Spitsbergen in July 2005. During this trip he visited the glaciers "Lillihöök" and "Monaco". Prince Albert II also engaged in an Arctic expedition, reaching the North Pole on Easter, 16 April 2006.
Controversy
Bachelorhood
Over the years, there has been much discussion of the prince's continued bachelor status. Though he has received much press attention for dating well-known fashion models and actresses, including Angie Everhart and Claudia Schiffer, as well as Victoria Zdrok (who has been both a Playboy Playmate and a Penthouse Pet), his apparent disinclination to marry gave rise to rumors that he is gay, and merely engaged in superficial, sham dating. Prince Albert has consistently denied this suggestion, most notably in a 1994 interview published in the French magazine
Madame Figaro. "At first it was amusing," he said, "but it becomes very irritating in the long term to hear people say that I am homosexual."
These rumors would be put to rest by 2005 with a paternity claim against Albert that was backed up by DNA tests.
In October 2005, German magazine Buntereports that Prince Albert is dating Telma Ortiz, a sister-in-law of Spain's Crown Prince Felipe. However, in November, 2005 the Prince has instructed his lawyer, Thierry Lacoste to commence legal proceedings against French newspaper France Dimanche for violation of privacy and false information regarding the story.
On February 10, 2006, at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics, Prince Albert was accompanied by former South African Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock.
Paternity suits
In 1992, a California woman, Tamara J. Rotolo, filed a paternity suit against the prince, claiming that he was the father of her illegitimate daughter, whom she named Jazmin Grace Grimaldi. However, the case, which went to trial in 1993, eventually was dismissed by Superior Court Judge Graham Anderson Cribbs, who claimed that there was "insufficient contact between Albert and the state of California to justify hearing a suit there" (Evening Standard, March 24,1993, page 20), agreeing with an assertion by the prince's lawyer, Stanley Arkin, that the California court had no jurisdiction. In court papers, Prince Albert admitted that he had been with Tamara Rotolo in Monaco on "a couple of occasions" in July 1991. (The child had been born approximately nine months later, on March 4, 1992.) As reported by a local newspaper covering the case, "Arkin asserted that the Riverside County court had no jurisdiction in the case since the romantic encounter supposedly occurred in Monaco and Albert has had no contacts with California that relate to the issues in the suit." Prince Albert has not agreed to Rotolo's request that he take a paternity test.
An earlier paternity suit, brought by Bea Fiedler, a German topless model whom the Daily Telegraph described as a "sex-film star", reportedly also was dismissed. A blood test, which was refused by the judge, did not prove that the prince was not the father of Fiedler's son, Daniel
Illegitimate son
In May 2005, Nicole Coste, a former Air France flight attendant from Togo, claimed that her youngest son, Alexandre[ is Prince Albert's son, proven by DNA tests conducted by technicians working on orders from the Monegasque government. She further claimed the prince had signed a notarized certificate confirming paternity but that she had not received a copy of it. The French weekly
Paris Match published a ten-page interview with Coste and included photographs of the prince holding and feeding Alexandre. Coste also told
Paris Match that she is presently living in the prince's Paris apartment, has been receiving an allowance from him while pretending to be the girlfriend of one of his friends in order to maintain privacy. She also said that the prince had last seen Alexandre in February 2005. A spokesman for Prince Albert had no comment, though upon news of Coste's claims, the prince's lawyer, Thierry Lacoste, announced that "A judicial strategy will be determined within the next few days."
In mid May 2005, Lacoste announced that as a result of the international publicity over the revelations of the prince's son, Prince Albert is suing the
Daily Mail,
Bunte, and
Paris Match for delving too deeply into his private life.
On July 6, 2005, a few days before he was enthroned on July 12, Albert II officially confirmed via his lawyer Thierry Lacoste that 22 month-old Alexandre Coste is his son.
Succession issues
As Prince Albert has yet to marry, his lack of legitimate issue became a matter of public and political concern, due to the possibility that there might be no successors to the throne upon his death. Monaco's constitution specifies that only "direct and legitimate" descendants can assume the throne. Albert's illegitimate son, Alexandre, could be legitimated via legislation or if Albert marries the boy's mother, however, he has so far refused to do either. On April 2, 2002 Monaco passed Princely Law 1.249 which provides that if a reigning prince dies without surviving legitimate issue, the throne would pass to his siblings and their descendants under the rule of male-preference primogeniture. Before this change, the crown could pass to a direct male descendant of the reigning prince only, making Albert's sisters ineligible. This change made the extinction of the Grimaldi dynasty less likely. (This did not arise in Rainier's case, as he succeeded his maternal grandfather, not an uncle.)
Caroline, Princess of Hanover, follows Albert as heiress presumptive in the line of succession to the Monegasque throne. Though she is only the heiress-presumptive and not heiress-apparent, in the constitution, the title Hereditary Prince or Princess is not reserved for heirs-apparent. Thus, Caroline is Hereditary Princess, and her son, Andrea, is currently second in line to the throne.
Titles
Albert has held two positions from birth:
- His Serene Highness The Hereditary Prince of Monaco, Marquis of Baux (1958-2005)
- His Most Serene Highness The Sovereign Prince of Monaco (2005-)
As Prince, his official shortened title is
His Most Serene Highness Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco; this does not include the many other styles claimed by the Grimaldi family (see Sovereign Prince of Monaco for a complete list of titles).
Source: Wikipedia