Sad new photographs of ‘Prisoner Princess’ Charlene of Monaco emerge
An ever-growing mystery surrounds the generally glum-looking Princess Charlene of Monaco, with new photographs heightening concerns.
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There’s a particularly cheesy throw pillow you can buy that reads, “Whoever says money can’t buy happiness doesn’t know where to shop”.
It’s a line so vacuous it would make Nöel Coward weep – and which a new photo of a princess once alleged to have been all but held hostage can thoroughly trounce.
I find it impossible to look at any photos of Her Serene Highness Princess Charlene of Monaco, the wife of the ruler of the tiny but obscenely wealthy principality, and not feel tremendously sad. Has a woman with so much money, so many jewels and such unfettered access to Parisian couturiers ever looked so bloody miserable?
Monaco’s national day celebrations was held this week and Charlene and her husband of 13 years, Prince Albert, were out and on duty, giving off the same level of natural attraction and zinging chemistry that was probably felt around the table at the Oslo Peace Accords.
But this year, the photos, I think, are more of a Debbie Downer than ever because they show us something else – it’s not just the former Olympic swimmer who seems to have signed over her life and outward ability to express happiness, but now there is another generation increasingly involved too.
Shots and the video that has come out of the couple’s children, Prince Jacques, Marquis of Baux, and Princess Gabriella, Countess of Carladè, at official proceedings makes for, what I find, uncomfortable viewing.
To wit: That tiny nervous prince in an oddly large hat saluting his father; the young princess left to stand there like a Dior-clad ornament. Are they bored? Hungry? Nervous? Or so inured to the madness of their life that this seems normal?
By all rights, if Monaco had done away with male primogeniture like it did with income tax, then it would be Gabriella who should be next in line to the throne to rule over the two square kilometre, deeply traditional and Catholic enclave.
It was she who was born first, not her brother. But if there is one thing that Monaco’s royal family has proven over the last decade and a bit, it is that it still appears to operate under, if not quite feudal, then feudal-adjacent lines.
Take the story of their mother Charlene, she of the eternally doe-esque, mournful eyes.
Her fate was sealed in 2000 when she met the playboy princeling Albert, Princess Grace’s only son.
After years of him fulfilling every cliche of an overindulged royal, the pressure on him to settle down and get down to that business of heir-begetting was mounting, making it particularly handy when he fell for the South African backstroke champion.
The unlikely couple started dating and soon she traded the pool for Monte Carlo. Hello, fairytale time.
Except, it really wasn’t.
Charlene spent her years as a royal girlfriend isolated and lonely, unemployed, unable to speak the language (French) and the target of sniping, gossipy locals.
Things really came crashing down in the months leading up to their big fat gauche wedding.
Weeks before the couple’s nuptials, a French newspaper reported that she had tried to flee the country repeatedly, including allegedly having ‘taken refuge’ inside the South African embassy while in Paris for a dress fitting and trying to escape during the Grand Prix.
It was also alleged that she had her passport taken by palace officials when she was en route to the airport, having purchased a one-way ticket back to South Africa.
“Charlene had her passport confiscated so that the prince’s entourage could persuade her to stay,” a Monagesque police source told the Daily Mail.
Something seemed very rotten in the state, or at least principality, of Monaco.
The palace quickly went about trying to douse the flames, denying everything, and the princess herself would later call the claims she had unsuccessfully tried to escape “categorical lies”. Still, the auguries were hardly great.
During a pre-wedding interview, Charlene reportedly turned to Albert and asked, “What do you want me to say?” Another journalist later said of Charlene at the time, “I wanted to put my arms around her and tell her it would be all right”.
When the couple wed in July 2011, the bride burst into tears. She was 33, he was 53.
(She later said of her crying, “everything was just so overwhelming and there were all the mixed emotions because of the rumours, and obviously all this tension built up”).
One wedding guest told the New York Post: “The expression on Charlene’s face seemed so forced at many points during the nuptials”. Another described it as a “messy business”.
The same story labelled her “the prisoner princess”.
Things seemed to get back on track for the House of Grimaldi with Charlene triumphantly telling the Times in 2013, to supposedly show just how well she was adjusting to life, “I have made two close friends in Monaco.” Two!
(The same report claimed that she ‘usually’ moved about the tiny enclave with an “entourage of bodyguards and palace officials”).
Then, in December 2014, they welcomed their bébés. (They were the first royal twins ever born in Monaco since the principality’s founding in the 13th century).
But the wild story of Charlene was really only getting started.
In 2021, speculation about their marriage went into overdrive after she ended up spending much of the year a continent away from her family, staying on a private game reserve in South Africa.
On Albert and Charlene’s 10th wedding anniversary, they were 12,000km apart.
The reason given: Having travelled to the country for her conservation work, she had been grounded by health complications from years in the pool, which saw her undergo multiple surgeries which saw her collapse in September and which prevented her from flying.
However, during this time, Charlene also posted highly unusual shots to her personal Instagram account, including her reading a bible.
When Albert, Jacques and Gabriella visited her in South Africa, one photo showed the youngest princess had, unusually, cut her own hair.
The same year, a woman alleged in an Italian court that Albert was the father of her child, the third such paternity claim made against him. (Albert has legally recognised daughter Jazmin Grimaldi, 32, and son Alexandre Grimaldi, 21).
Charlene endured “difficult times, far from her family. A test also for our children and for myself”, as Albert later told a local newspaper.
In November 2021, the princess finally returned to Monaco but “within hours”, as Albert told People, “it became pretty evident that she was unwell” with her soon checking into a treatment facility.
“She was clearly exhausted, physically and emotionally,” the prince said. “She was overwhelmed and couldn’t face official duties, life in general or even family life.”
He also stressed, “This has nothing to do with our relationship. I want to make that very clear. These are not problems within our relationship. It’s of a different nature”.
In 2022, in an interview with Matin, Charlene described her health as still being “fragile”, saying “the road has been long, difficult and so painful. Today I feel calmer”.
In 2023, speculation that Albert and Charlene were about to separate surged again after she deleted her Instagram account.
Today though, life in Monte Carlo seems to go on. The princess continues to attend to her duties and is back at her public post, though never, ever with the air of a woman at peace with her choices or happy in her life, and more that of someone trapped inside the Iranian embassy circa 1980.
Next month, Jacques and Gabriella will turn 10 and their time in the spotlight will surely only increase.
Back in 2011, one wedding guest said of the marriage, “A happily ever after scenario would be a nice surprise”. The jury, I reckon, is still very much out on that one.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles
Originally published as Sad new photographs of ‘Prisoner Princess’ Charlene of Monaco emerge
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