RECENT FINANCIAL SCANDAL IN MONACO? IS PRINCE ALBERT'S FORTUNE HIS TO SPEND AS HE SEES FIT?

Ah, Monaco. One of the tiniest and wealthiest countries in the world, and a cast of characters worthy of any classic Greek play.  Can you really walk across it in a half hour or less?  You can!  It's jammed with wealthy and powerful individuals and Prince Albert II is the Head of State as well as one of the busiest men on earth.

To start, the scandal first began with the possibility that the businessmen involved were profiting personally or taking more money than due them, but extended to criticism about how Albert spends his own fortune.

For this I first reference TOWN AND COUNTRY MAGAZINE : MONACO - ALBERT II - FINANCIAL ADVISORS by Simon Usborne from February 2024

The suggestion of financial scandal began in 2021 and the first reveal was via YouTube! Some of the Prince's long time advisors were involved in the scandal.  Was there anyone left to trust?

Excerpt: In a kind of Wikileaks-sur-mer, the site began posting scanned and lightly redacted documents, including supposed e-mails and bank statements that, "if we are to believe the veracity of these documents" as the newspaper Le Monde cautioned, accused these four men in particular of exploiting their positions and princely patronage to extract enormous wealth from Monaco's superprime real estate market, allegations they were swift to categorically deny.

By June 2023, the once trusting Prince had asked all four men to resign.  

NEW YORK POST : INSIDE DANGEROUS SPENDING : HOW ALBERT SPENDS (HIS PERSONAL FORTUNE IS A BILLION OR MORE)

Reading around this scandal, the Prince's expenditures including an allowance for Princess Charlene and a payment of her overdrafts, allowances for Princess Caroline and Princess Stephanie, as well as generosity to his daughter Jazmin's New York apartment and an allowance for his son, Alexandre. Nicole Coste's once received $850,000 a year but also "decamped" to live in London.  (A man buying his mistress a place to live in for the rest of her life, or which she can sell if in need after the relationship is over is a very good idea.)

So here's my take:  The expenditures for houses, allowances, and so on, for those closest to Albert II are really not all that much considering the cost of things in Monaco and the expenditures related to public appearances that include social events.  Princess Caroline and Princess Stephanie have their own financial resources as well as may some others. I suspect that even with designers possibly giving deals to the beautiful and famous family of Monaco so as to wear their clothing, the need to appear fashionable in keeping with the marketing of Monaco as one of the most expensive destinations on earth means a lot of the money is spent on clothing and jewelry. 

Could YOU afford to live in Monaco? Some websites suggest that about $10,000 a month is average for a single person.

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NICOLE COSTE and ALBERT II OF MONACO KEPT THEIR RELATIONSHIP A SECRET FOR SIX YEARS - THEN SHE WENT TO THE MEDIA TO REVEAL IT

THE LIST : NICOLE COSTE AND ALBERT II FEUD MONACO  By Hannah Rice  August 2023

According to this article, Albert and Nicole arrived at the same events in Monaco separately, so as to keep their relationship a secret. They met in 1997 when he was on a plane and she was the stewardess for 1st class travelers. It might have been love at first sight for the both of them.  Their son was born in 2003 and then the status of the relationship and Nicole's in Albert's life - as well as what she was or was not to the citizens of Monaco - became a difficult question.

Excerpt: ...For one thing, it is understood that Prince Albert was not at the hospital when Alexandre was born, leaving Nicole to undergo the pains of childbirth solo.  For another, he was not exactly quick to claim paternity.

On the contrary, Albert dragged his feet on the matter, allowing weeks, and then months, to pass by without taking responsibility for his first-born son.  As explained in the French tabloid L'Express, Nicole had to fight her ex-boyfriend step-by-step on the matter and struggled to obtain proof that Albert was, indeed, Alexandre's father.  In terms of genetic evidence, it has been reported that Albert took a top-secret D.N.A. test, which was performed at a lab in Switzerland.  However, this was only one step in what L'Express called a "long and tough negotiation" between the former lovers.

Missy here!  I don't think that going to the media for resolving relationship issues is the best idea. That Nicole did this tells me she was frustrated with Albert. And also that Albert did not entirely trust or believe Nicole. In this article Nicole spoke of Princess Charlene and a rivalry is revealed. 

But what we want to know is if Nicole is at all responsible for Charlene's long stay in Africa and eventually return to Monaco, only to then head to weeks in a Swiss clinic to address a mystery ailment.  So very many rumors plague these people. 

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PRINCE ALBERT II and the SO CALLED SECRET ACCOUNTS TO SUPPORT EX MISTRESS NICOLE COSTE and HIS EXTRAMARITAL CHILDREN :OPINION BY MISSY

PRINCE ALBERT II and the SO CALLED SECRET ACCOUNTS TO SUPPORT 

EX MISTRESS NICOLE COSTE and HIS EXTRAMARITAL CHILDREN

Today I walked the equivalent of Monaco by the sea.  It took me about forty minutes on flat sidewalks.  Of course, Monaco is far more picturesque and has a far greater and unique history in Europe than the California beach area that  I walked.  As I walked I thought about what it must be to Princess Charlene, the commoner athlete who has had to adapt to Europe's longest reigning aristocratic family with its tragedies and eccentric characters, made worse by International news coverage.

All over the news, is the revelations supposed to come from an ex-accountant for the Prince, that he has secret accounts to support his ex mistress and extramarital children.  Why would this story be so important?  

The subtext is that Princess Charlene did not know about the accounts.  But Charlene has said nothing about it.  Why would she?  Charlene dated Albert for years before they finally married and pressure was put upon her to become pregnant and give birth to heirs.  I believe Charlene to be a sensitive person in general but I doubt that she was unaware that Prince Albert had children from two affairs, one brief, and one that went on and might have turned into marriage if not for the objections of his father. This is old news to Charlene. Many women today enter into serious relationships with men who have had children in and out of marriage or with men who have been married before and had children with other wives.

If Princess did, as some speculate, have a breakdown which lead to a prolonged stay in Africa a couple years back, it would likely have been that another such revelation about her husband, Prince Albert II, had come up.  One she had not known about and frankly, one he himself did not know about. Such rumors are likely to come up for Albert. He was known to be a sexual animal prone to promiscuity for a good part of his pre-commitment life and to be fair to him, he didn't have to work hard at meeting women and the women were into it too. Actually, it's surprising there were not more children. 

Two things must be remembered about Albert, and the first is that he was born into wealth and advantage but also the burden of responsibility that he become the business-savvy ruler of a tiny principality, the country of Monaco.  While his father was the Prince, Monaco was in financial difficulties that were turned around. The country also agreed that it would be taken over by France in certain conditions are not met.  To the point, Albert does not dare allow his country, a city-state, to become in financial peril again.  It's speculation when it comes to the notion of "over-spending" and it could be that the reported allowances and real estate gifted is actually a pittance.

Albert is one of the world's richest men who took responsibility for support and that support follows some agreement that was likely made. His advisors would not likely put an end to that support or what seems to be the over-spending of Princess Charlene. In actuality, generosity is about not unwisely overspending when we support others, but in considering their situation without our contribution.

I personally do not think these accounts are "secret" but rather to separate out money for one purpose and another. Had Albert married the mothers of his extramarital children, he would have had to make financial arrangements for them, so why not this way?  It would be ridiculous for his daughter, Jazmin Grace Grimaldi, or his son Alexandre Grimaldi, to not live well.

Another aspect of this is something some friends of mine along the way who experienced wealth after living in relative poverty have experienced.  There's a loss of perspective that includes forgetting their days when they had to live paycheck to paycheck or how it was to grow up without. They simply loose their perspective about what things cost. Relatively unlimited funds and a new social group of spenders pushes them to buying whatever they like without consideration. Some of us have fantasies about what it would be like to be in their position but how many of us would like to be on the world-stage where our every haircut, every pound gained or lost, every fashion choice we made, was commented upon? It's near impossible for such a person to keep their privacy.

For readers of Mistress Manifesto, there is also another aspect to this reportage of Monaco of interest and that is exactly how men who are married and have a mistress as well handle the financing of their lifestyle. There certainly is the the potential for secret accounts.  I wish I knew but feel sure that in some cases the mistress is not a secret and in some cases the money is not a secret either. Mistresses are thought to be kept by rich men who can afford them, but today the financial help a man can give a woman who he's involved with can be not so much, an amount that betters her life but does not fully financially support her.  The woman who is fully financially supported by a man, sometimes for the rest of her life, is what I call a Classic Mistress.  We do not hear much about these women who live private lives. 

C 2024 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

You may be interested in the following archived posts:

September 2010

NICOLE COSTE  Mistress of Prince Albert II of Monaco and Mother of His First Son

January 2015

THE GRIMALDI CURSE and THE MISTRESSES OF THE PRINCES OF MONACO

Here is an article that has appeared recently about these "secret" payments.

DAILY BEAST : Albert Battles Secret Data Dumps

PRINCE ALBERT II OF MONACO TAKES MISTRESS NICOLE COSTE TO THE RED CROSS BALL

Nicole Coste was our Mistress of the Month in September 2010 here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot because of her long relationship with Prince Albert II of Monaco, who met her when she was an flight attendant in first class. Now, all these years later, it is clear that she and their son have continued to be in Albert's life in some way although it seems they have been living discreetly enough to barely make the papers.

THE GRIMALDI CURSE and THE MISTRESSES OF THE PRINCES OF MONACO was the subject in January 2015.

Though the Grimaldis are the royal family with the longest duration in Europe, it seems none of the children of Ranier and actress Grace Kelly have had an easy time of it romantically. Albert II was a long time bachelor who had the reputation of being a womanizer. He is currently being accused of fathering a third love child, having been forced to recognize two children through DNA testing before, including the son of Nicole. If it turns out to be true, he would have fathered this third child while dating Charlene.

For several months now there has been speculation that Albert's wife, Princess Charlene, the mother of their twins, whose son will take the throne after Albert, has absconded to South Africa to get away from him - and Monaco - and is only using her work saving the rhinos or trouble with her sinuses to stay away. Perhaps they are actually in a trial separation or she is taking time out to find herself or decide if she wants to stay married to him.

What I've heard is that Albert wanted to marry Nicole, but his father refused to allow him to do so. The Red Cross Ball in Monaco is perhaps the biggest event the small country hosts. It is a fund raiser.  While through the years in his bachelorhood Albert has had one of his siblings attend events with him, allowing Nicole to the ball has to be a statement. He has provided heirs to the throne, his parents are no longer alive to tell him what to do, and though we may feel for Charlene, as a man he has the right to be happy.  If for years now Nicole has endured some social estrangement over her relationship with Albert, to me what Albert is announcing is that Nicole is to be accepted.

Together Nicole and Albert have a son who has just celebrated his eighteenth birthday.

In this article from Daily Mail - Online by Harriet Johnston, there are photos of Nicole and Alexandre Grimaldi-Coste, the son. DAILY MAIL : REVEAL OF ROCKY MARRIAGE PRINCE ALBERT PRINCESS CHARLENE 

EXCERPT: (Quoting Nicole) :  Many criticized Nicole in public, dubbing her 'audacious' for demanding recognition and rights for her son.  She also caused anger by being pictured strolling with her son in the Monaco sunshine on the eve of Albert and Charlene's wedding in 2011.  'I was fed up being a secret,' she said.

After the wedding I suffered because some socialites stopped inviting me to events if they thought the Prince and Princess would be there.  They thought it would cause embarrassment.