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Ex-King of Belgium Acknowledges a Long-Dismissed Daughter

After a court-ordered DNA test, the 85-year-old King Albert II, who abdicated in 2013, conceded that he was the biological father of the artist Delphine Boël, 51.

Delphine Boël, center, had claimed for years that she was conceived during an affair between her mother, Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, and Albert in the 1960s.Credit...Laurie Dieffembacq/Belga, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

King Albert II, the former Belgian monarch, conceded this week that DNA tests showed he was the biological father of Delphine Boël, an artist who claimed to be his daughter from an extramarital affair, an extraordinary admission after years of lawsuits that exposed the royal family to unusual levels of scrutiny.

King Albert’s lawyers said in a statement on Monday that the 85-year-old former monarch, who initially refused to comply with court-ordered DNA tests before finally submitting last year, had “taken note” of the results.

The lawyers added that there were “legal arguments and objections” establishing that “a legal paternity is not necessarily the reflection of a biological paternity,” but that the king had decided “not to raise them and to put an end to this difficult procedure, in honor and dignity.”

Alain Berenboom, one of the king’s lawyers, said on Tuesday that the Court of Appeal in Brussels would hear the case for a final time in June and that the legal proceedings would come to a close shortly afterward.

Ms. Boël, 51, is a Belgian visual artist who has claimed for years that she was conceived during an affair in the 1960s between her mother, Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, and Albert, who was then a prince and married to Paola Ruffo di Calabria, an Italian princess. Prince Albert and his wife already had three children.

Rumors of an illegitimate child were first alluded to in a 1999 book about Queen Paola by a journalist, Mario Danneels, and Ms. Boël made her first public claim that King Albert was her father in a 2005 interview.

While King Albert has never explicitly denied Ms. Boël’s claim, he refused to acknowledge it, and Ms. Boël filed a lawsuit seeking recognition as his biological daughter in 2013. King Albert ceded the throne to his eldest son that year, ending his immunity from prosecution.

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King Albert II, center, abdicated the Belgian throne in 2013, and became embroiled in a paternity lawsuit shortly afterward.Credit...Stephanie Lecocq/EPA, via Shutterstock

Belgium is a constitutional monarchy, where most of the governing power rests with the Parliament, much like the systems in other European nations such as Britain, Spain or the Netherlands.

Marc Uyttendaele, Ms. Boël’s lawyer, said on Tuesday that she was “relieved” to be “considered as a legitimate child” because it would “put an end to the social exclusion that she was subjected to and will prevent her children from having to bear this burden.”

But Mr. Uyttendaele added that she had been “hurt” by the “coldness” of the king’s statement.

In it, the king’s lawyers said that he had “never been involved with any family, social or educative decision whatsoever regarding Madame Delphine Boël” and that it was Ms. Boël who, “40 years later,” had decided to “change families” through a “long” and “painful” lawsuit.

“The attitude taken by Albert II yesterday does not foretell the opening of a dialogue between his daughter and him,” Mr. Uyttendaele said. “For her part, she is open to this dialogue, but without much hope.”

King Albert II was a second son and, as such, was not expected to succeed to the throne. Instead, he enjoyed a lavish lifestyle of parties and travel, and when Ms. Boël was born in 1968, the prince privately recognized her as his daughter and cared for her, according to her lawyer.

But Albert’s elder brother, King Baudouin, died suddenly of heart failure in 1993, leaving no children, meaning Albert became king. According to Ms. Boël, that is when her biological father, seeking to avoid a scandal, cut all ties.

Ms. Boël will not enter the royal line of succession, but she will be in line to inherit some part of the king’s private fortune. Her lawyer, however, stressed that she had filed the suit for emotional reasons, not financial ones, noting that Jacques Boël, who raised Ms. Boël as his only daughter, was a wealthy man.

“Her motives were therefore in no way profit-seeking — quite the opposite,” Mr. Uyttendaele said.

Aurelien Breeden has covered France from the Paris bureau since 2014. He has reported on some of the worst terrorist attacks to hit the country, the dismantling of the migrant camp in Calais and France's tumultuous 2017 presidential election. More about Aurelien Breeden

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: Paternity Claim Is True, Says Ex-King of Belgium. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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