Belgium has officially recognised Clément Vandenkerckhove, 26, as the illegitimate son of Prince Laurent, the younger brother of King Philippe, granting him the title of prince and a claim to a share of the royal family's wealth.
According to the Belgian weekly Soir Mag, Prince Laurent and Clément Vandenkerckhove visited the civil registry office together in February 2026 to formalise their family relationship. The ceremony was not made public at the time, and the news only reached the press in August.
The legal recognition automatically made Clément a prince of Belgium and entitled him to be addressed as "His Royal Highness." He will also inherit a share of Prince Laurent's wealth on equal terms with the prince's legitimate children.
The benefits end there. The newly recognised prince will not receive any state money for his title, has no claim to the throne and no royal duties. Christian Behrendt, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Liège, has said that only children born within a marriage approved by the government can join the line of succession.
Clément is entitled to take the royal surname Van Saxe-Coburg but does not appear to intend to use it. He told the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad that he is proud of the name Vandenkerckhove, and that giving it up would betray everything his mother did for him.
A prince's hidden affair in the 1990s
In the 1990s, Clément's mother was one of several mistresses of Prince Laurent. Laurent, now 62, is the third child of former King Albert II of Belgium and the younger brother of the current king, Philippe. Belgian press has nicknamed him the "prince maudit," or cursed prince, after a string of scandals and diplomatic incidents.
In 2011 he was caught up in controversy over a trip to Congo made against government advice. In 2018 parliament cut his annual allowance after an unauthorised visit to the Chinese embassy in military uniform. In 2023 he argued that members of the royal family should be treated as self-employed workers and sued for the benefits that would entail.
In 1994, when Laurent was 30, he was given his own villa, giving him his first real taste of an unsupervised bachelor life. Jan van den Berghe, an expert on the Belgian monarchy, told the broadcaster VRT that girlfriends came and went, and that Laurent often mixed up their names.
Laurent met the singer and actress Iris Vandenkerckhove, better known by her stage name Wendy Van Wanten, at a fashion show in Paris. A year later, the Belgian press discovered that a celebrity was among his mistresses.
When the rumours reached King Albert, he was reportedly furious and shouted at his son. Royal expert Mario Danneels said on VRT that Wendy would certainly never have become a princess, though the relationship was genuine and the two truly loved each other.
Birth and a childhood kept secret
On 16 August 2000, Iris Vandenkerckhove gave birth to a son. Reporters and paparazzi besieged the hospital, hoping to photograph the possible first child of Prince Laurent. The boy's name fuelled the speculation further, since Laurent's villa was known as "Clémentine."
Beyond the name, the press had little firm evidence. Only one photograph existed showing Iris and Laurent together at a party, and the singer's manager could just as easily have been the father.
Iris and the prince separated after the birth. She raised the boy alone, and her new husband later helped bring him up. Clément went on to study graphic design. Belgian press reported that he took after his father, sharing his love of horses and fast cars.
Otherwise, the life of the presumed heir was entirely ordinary. After school he worked at a car dealership, and he now works in a restaurant kitchen. He told Het Nieuwsblad that he hopes to eventually make money in real estate, saying he sometimes feels overwhelmed by all the plans and ideas in his head.
His girlfriend, Guadalupe Borrero Ferreira, has an equally unaristocratic job, working in a supermarket bakery. She came from Venezuela, later lived with an aunt and uncle in Portugal, and met Clément on the chat site Omegle. At first she did not know that his mother was a well-known singer or that his presumed father was the king's brother.
Learning the truth and a phone call from a prince
Clément himself did not learn the truth about his origins until he was sixteen. He has said his mother told him his father was a prince and gave him Laurent's phone number, but that he did not work up the courage to call for another four years. No one answered at first, but the prince called him back a few minutes later.
Clément has said he remembers every detail as if it were tattooed in his mind, describing the four steps to his mattress as feeling like a journey around the world. He recalled looking at the screen, reading his father's name, answering and being asked by his father how he was doing.
The prince suggested a DNA test and went with Clément to the hospital for it. CNN quoted Clément recalling that his father told him he would go first so that Clément would feel at ease. Once the relationship was confirmed, the two began speaking regularly, but kept it secret for five years.
Going public and fallout among Belgian nobility
Laurent decided to acknowledge his son publicly in September 2025, shortly before the release of a revealing documentary about his relationship with Iris Vandenkerckhove. A statement from the prince said he hereby acknowledged that he was Clément Vandenkerckhove's biological father, and that in recent years the two had spoken about it openly and honestly.
In the documentary, Clément's mother said the prince had been fully involved throughout the pregnancy and had never intended to reject the child. She said the end of their relationship was not his fault, explaining that she knew she had to step aside so the child's father could live happily.
The disclosure hit Laurent's wife, Princess Claire, hardest. She had long known about her husband's son but feared public embarrassment, and by late 2025 had almost stopped appearing at official events.
Belgian aristocratic circles reacted to the new prince's emergence as a scandal. A source close to the royal family told Het Nieuwsblad that the news about Laurent and Clément had been received very negatively among the nobility, and that this kind of situation is simply not approved of in those circles.
