{"id":868193,"date":"2026-08-23T05:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T05:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/868193\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T05:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T05:04:09","slug":"belgian-car-salesman-becomes-prince-after-dna-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/868193\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgian car salesman becomes prince after DNA test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A Belgian car salesman has become a prince at the age of 26 after being acknowledged as the son of the king\u2019s brother, Prince Laurent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Cl\u00e9ment Vandenkerckhove\u2019s mother, a Belgian singer who had a relationship with Prince Laurent in the 1990s, only told him who his father was when he turned 16 a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">It emerged this week that he was legally recognized as the son and heir of the 63-year-old younger brother of King Philippe, at a low-key town hall ceremony about six months ago after a DNA test proved his link to the royal family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Prince Laurent has registered his paternity of Vandenkerckhove with Belgium\u2019s civil registry, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/world-news\/2026\/08\/19\/belgian-prince-recognises-illegitimate-son-after-26-years\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Telegraph reported<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The formality affords the new prince equal inheritance rights to Laurent\u2019s private estate with his half-sister Princess Louise, 20, and half-brothers Prince Nicolas, 20, and Prince Aymeric, 19, children Laurent shares with Princess Claire whom he married in 2003.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">But he will not receive a royal allowance, nor will he be expected to take on official duties, and he has no rights to the Belgian throne.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Vandenkerckhove could take his father\u2019s family name, Saxe-Coburg, but has indicated he may not choose to.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cI am proud of the name Vandenkerckhove,\u201d he recently told Flemish daily newspaper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nieuwsblad.be\/binnenland\/clement-zoon-van-prins-laurent-praat-bij-siffer-in-puglia-openlijk-over-zijn-nieuwe-leven-ik-was-verlost\/159630078.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Het Nieuwsblad.<\/a> \u201cIf I were to sacrifice that family name, it would be a betrayal of everything my mother has done for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Vandenkerckhove was born in August 2000 to Belgian singer Wendy Van Wanten, whose real name is Iris Vandenkerckhove.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">She and Laurent dated in the 1990s after a chance encounter at a fashion show in Paris but the relationship did not last and there has been speculation that Laurent\u2019s father, the former king, disapproved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In a documentary that aired on Belgian network VTM last September, Vandenkerckhove recounted his mother\u2019s admission that Laurent was his father.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Four years after that, he contacted his father to share what he\u2019d been told and Prince Laurent agreed to a DNA test.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWe went to the hospital together and I remember him saying, \u2018I\u2019ll go first so you\u2019re feeling at ease,\u2019\u201d Vandenkerckhove told VTM.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Once paternity was confirmed, Vandenkerckhove said he and his father had engaged in \u201copen and honest conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">This is not the first time a secret involving Belgium\u2019s Royal Family has emerged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Laurent\u2019s father, now 92, fought a paternity battle for many years before admitting in 2020 that he had fathered a daughter during an affair.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Delphine Bo\u00ebl, 58, eventually won her legal fight and was granted the title of princess.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">She now uses the name Delphine de Saxe-Coburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Belgian car salesman has become a prince at the age of 26 after being acknowledged as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[712,49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-868193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}