Updated

Updated · bbc.co.uk · Aug 20

Prince Laurent Legally Recognizes 26-Year-Old Clément Vandenkerckhove as Son After 99.5% DNA Match

Updated

Updated · bbc.co.uk · Aug 20

Prince Laurent Legally Recognizes 26-Year-Old Clément Vandenkerckhove as Son After 99.5% DNA Match

Q: Why did a famous singer hide the royal paternity of her son for decades, and what finally forced the truth into the spotlight?

Wendy Van Wanten appears to have kept Clément’s paternity private to protect her son and avoid a damaging royal scandal. By her own account, she stayed silent until Clément was ready, saying she acted “in the interest of my child.” The wider context also mattered: her relationship with Prince Laurent reportedly ended under pressure from Laurent’s father, King Albert II, who disapproved of the match, and Laurent then moved on with his public royal life and later married Princess Claire. The truth came into the spotlight when Clément himself chose to go public. As a teenager, he was told Laurent was his father; at 20 he contacted the prince, they met, and later took a DNA test that Clément said showed a 99.5% match. That private certainty eventually became public after Clément decided to tell his story in a Flemish television documentary, with Laurent’s knowledge and a brief press statement from the prince ahead of the broadcast. The formal recognition followed quietly at a civil registry ceremony months later, but it was the combination of Clément’s decision to speak, the DNA evidence, and Belgium’s recent history of royal paternity disputes that made the story impossible to keep in the shadows. The earlier Delphine Boël case, in which former King Albert II was forced after years of legal resistance to recognise another child, had already made royal paternity claims a matter of intense public scrutiny.

3 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Aug 20

A town hall ceremony six months ago quietly brought Clément Vandenkerckhove into Prince Laurent’s family, legally making the 26-year-old a prince and heir.
A DNA test showing a 99.5% match confirmed the paternity after Clément, the son of singer Wendy Van Wanten, gradually built a relationship with Laurent over several years.
Clément will not receive a royal allowance, join public royal duties or enter Belgium’s line of succession, though he can use the Saxe-Coburg name if he chooses.
The case echoes former King Albert II’s paternity dispute with Delphine Boël, who won recognition as a princess after a long court battle and was acknowledged in 2020.