He’s no stranger to a scandal, having fathered two acknowledged love children – but now Prince Albert of Monaco is locked in a bitter falling out with his right-hand man of more than 20 years.
Claude Palmero, 68, looked after the Royal Family‘s finances (including their investments, their properties and the main palace) from 2001 to 2023, just as his father, André, had done for Prince Rainier III of Monaco two decades before him.
However, he was sacked by Prince Albert, 66, in 2023 after being targeted by a mysterious anti-corruption website. A few months later, French newspaper Le Monde published Palmero’s ‘secret notebooks’, which claimed to detail reckless spending by the Royal Family, with a particular spotlight on Princess Charlene, 46.
But the controversy has since deepened after the former financial adviser was reportedly arrested – and released without charge – last Wednesday.
He was questioned by police after Prince Albert filed a lawsuit against him, resulting in an investigation into alleged ‘breach of confidentiality, invasion of privacy and receiving the proceeds of two offences’.
Millionaire Palmero, who prefers his privacy and is rarely photographed, has vowed to ‘restore his honour’, his lawyer Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard told The Telegraph. He even aims to return to his role in the palace, which was ‘his life’.
He’s no stranger to a scandal, having fathered two acknowledged love children – but now Prince Albert of Monaco (pictured in August 2024) is locked in a bitter falling out with his right-hand man of more than 20 years. Albert, Jazmin and Alexandre are pictured in New York
Princess Charlene’s ‘crazy’ and ‘out of control’ spending was leaked in Claude Palmero’s memos earlier this year
Palmero, who is now said to work as a freelance financial consultant in Monaco, hasn’t heard from Prince Albert since July 2023, according to the publication.
Recalling his ‘very sudden’ dismissal, the former financial advisor’s lawyer said: ‘Palmero loved his job. It was his life, in fact. His life was Monaco; it was the Prince, the Prince’s family, helping and doing everything he could to protect them
‘It was very sudden. He felt completely depressed… it was incomprehensible,’ she added, before saying that if Palmero didn’t have the support of his family, ‘I think he would not be with us.’
The lawyer added: ‘Three years ago, someone decided to dirty the name of Claude Palmero… At the beginning, the Prince said to Palmero, “OK, I want to help you, it’s horrible, they are lying. I know that you are clean.” And two years later, the Prince says, “I am fed up of all these stories, and I want you to go away.”‘
Prince Albert, who took over the reins of the principality following his father Prince Rainier III’s death in 2005, sacked his trusted financial adviser in June 2023.
In an sudden purge, he also dismissed his chief-of-staff Laurent Anselmi after the two staff members were targeted by an anonymous website’s explosive claims of widespread corruption in the country.
The website, known as ‘Les Dossiers du Rocher’, emerged in late 2021 and targeted not only Palmero and Anselmi, but other prominent figures close to the prince including lawyer Thierry Lacoste and president of the principality’s supreme court Didier Linotte.
These men, known as the G4, were accused of orchestrating corruption involving multimillion-euro property deals, claims which all four vehemently deny.
Claude Palmero, 68, looked after the Royal Family’s finances (including their investments, their properties and the main palace) from 2001 to 2023, just as his father, André, had done for Prince Rainier III of Monaco two decades before him
Albert initially stood by his close confidants, but later began distancing himself from them. Then in June, Albert sacked Palmero and Anselmi, and again publicly played down associations with Lacoste, his lawyer and childhood friend, and Linotte.
After losing his role in the palace, Palmero reportedly filed a lawsuit against the royal family, accusing them of abuse of weakness, attempted extortion and theft. He also contested his dismissal before a tribunal headed by Judge Linotte.
But when the president of Monaco’s Supreme Court was pushed out, Palmero went to the European Court of Human Rights. He allegedly claimed that it wasn’t possible to get a fair hearing in the super-rich principality. The case is still ongoing.
Prince Albert of Monaco has denied all of Palmero’s allegations.
A few months later in January, excerpts from Palmero’s ‘secret notebooks’ made their way into two French newspapers. His lawyer denies that he gave the information to the press.
The books alleged that Albert spends millions every year from a secret French bank account to pay his former mistresses and love children – with Jazmin Grimaldi, 31, and Alexandre Coste-Grimaldi, 20, receiving allowances of £344,000 a year each.
According to Le Monde, Jazmin, Albert’s love child with U.S. estate agent Tamara Rotolo, receives £73,000 every three months – despite not being part of the royal family. Palmero noted she was given £4,200 for her 18th and a flat in New York worth £2.6 million seven years later.
He also noted that the palace was paying for kidnap and ransom insurance for Alexandre, 20, Albert’s son with former air hostess Nicole Coste. The Prince acknowledged paternity of Alexandre in 2005.
Princess Charlene of Monaco and Prince Albert pictured in November 2023
In 2015, Alexandre’s mother persuaded Albert to back her fashion business, which was fronted by a shop in London’s Knightsbridge, Le Monde said. Palmero noted in 2015 that it was ‘on course [to cost] one million [euros] a year’.
Libération, another of the French newspapers which published excerpts from the series of five notebooks, said the Prince had an account at French bank BNP under the name AG for ‘Albert Grimaldi’.
The newspaper said the account was used to pay Albert’s former mistresses and their children without his wife Princess Charlene, 46, knowing.
Meanwhile, Charlene, who is 20 years the Prince’s junior and spent four months in a hospital in 2021/2022 for ‘deep fatigue’, was routinely given an allowance of around £1.2 million a year – but still managed to overspend, according to Palmero’s notes.
The speed at which the mother-of-two apparently burned through money so worried the Prince’s accountant that he wrote in his notes: ‘It’s crazy! I have no control over the Princess’ spending.’
Investigators in the super-rich Mediterranean country, which has a population of just 36,000, are seeking to find out how Le Monde obtained Palmero’s notebooks, according to Le Parisien.
Palmero was reportedly released at around 2pm on last Wednesday and has not been charged at this stage, reported the French publication.
Palmero’s lawyer, Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard, denied reports in France’s national press that he had been taken into police custody over corruption allegations contained in a separate lawsuit filed by Prince Albert.
Albert and Charlene are pictured at King Charles and Queen Camilla’s coronation in 2023
She said ‘false information’ was ‘leaked to the media this morning in order to put pressure on the police and the justice system as well as to undermine the honour’ of her client, who has been the ‘target of powerful interests in Monaco for a long time’.
Canu-Bernard, who said her client denies wrongdoing, claimed: ‘Claude Palmero was indeed heard this morning, this does not in any way concern any suspicion of corruption… There was no follow-up because nothing was found against the former treasurer of the Palace.’
MailOnline contacted Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard and the Monaco Royal Household for comment at the time.
Earlier this year, Prince Albert said his family and the public had supported him after his former accountant accused him of financial impropriety, but his wife Princess Charlene is ‘very upset for him’.
The ruler spoke to Paris Match to mark his birthday two months after Palmero’s notes revealed Charlene’s personal spending allowance rocketed to more than £1million-a-year.
The leaked documents to French media earlier this year also accused the royal family of hiring illegal immigrants as nannies. Prince Albert did not comment on it at the time.
Speaking in March 2024, he said: ‘Thankfully, my whole family is there for me, showering me with their affection, both my immediate family and the extended family of Monegasque.’
But he went on: ‘She [Charlene] was also very upset for me, and saddened by certain things that came out in the media. We supported each other. She has resumed many of her activities, more public engagements, to everyone’s delight.’
The entries in Palermo’s notebooks seem to suggest that Prince Albert’s chaotic personal life has drained his riches.
The Prince acknowledged paternity of Alexandre (centre), 20, his son with Coste (left) in 2005
Nicole Coste (right with Albert) was allegedly on track to cost the monarch ‘nearly $1million a year’
Head of Monaco’s ruling Grimaldi dynasty since 2005, Albert is the only son of Prince Rainier III and former Hollywood star Grace Kelly. He has two acknowledged love children: Alexandre, by former air hostess Nicole Coste, born in 2003; and Jazmin, by U.S. estate agent Tamara Rotolo, born in 1993.
In September 2020 another putative love child sent a letter. The teenager – aged 15 at the time – is being raised in Brazil and claimed in the handwritten note to have been conceived during a round-the-world love affair in 2004.
The matter was to come to court in Milan, but was dropped. A spokesman for the Prince said it was a ‘hoax’.
Some of the most potentially damaging comments in Palmero’s notebooks refer to Charlene’s staff. He alleges she employed nannies and other domestic staff who were illegal immigrants, or living in Monaco illegally.
‘Her Serene Highness the Princess makes people work for her who are not compliant,’ Palmero warned Albert.
In a letter written in January 2017, he said another employee from the Philippines had been ‘illegal for five years’, despite being on a one-month tourist visa. ‘He gets paid 100 euros a day [£85] which is off the scale,’ Palmero wrote.
In December 2014, Charlene gave birth to twins, Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella, and immediately placed them in the care of nannies who Palmero claims were also illegal immigrants.
‘Update on the hiring of nannies . . . We are completely illegal (even their tourist visa expired on January 7),’ Palmero wrote on January 15 of that year.
‘They are not only in an illegal situation, but one entered with a false passport,’ he added.
In 2021, he vetoed new staff hires requested by Charlene, who already had ‘8.5 people in her service, there have never been so many’.
In a statement to Le Monde, the Prince’s lawyers said that if money was paid to illegal migrants, then it was Palmero who had authorised the expenditure.
Last year, Palmero was sacked as one of Albert’s most trusted lieutenants and is now accused of having embezzled cash – a claim he denies. ‘I never took a cent,’ he said.
‘This is a 100 per cent denial. I am neither corrupt nor a thief, all improbable things of which the princely family, for whom I devoted myself for two decades, unjustly accuses me today.’
In a statement Prince Albert said: ‘The attacks that Mr Palmero makes against me and against the state of Monaco and its institutions show his true nature and the little respect . . . he has for the family and the principality.’
Palmero’s departure follow two years of corruption claims distributed by a WikiLeaks-style website, Les Dossiers du Rocher (The Rock Files).
The website said that the Prince’s confidants manipulated the sky-high property market on The Rock – as the tiny tax haven Principality of Monaco is nicknamed – for personal gain.
Those named on the website included Albert’s former chief of staff Laurent Anselmi, Claude Palmero and his one-time lawyer Thierry Lacoste.
All were once close personal friends of Albert, while others accused of fraud include Monaco Supreme Court judge Didier Linotte.
All those named vehemently deny the claims made against them.
Prince Albert told Le Figaro last year: ‘The Rock Files brought to light, via the internet, certain activities of people who were working with me. As I’ve said: if trust is broken, then it’s impossible to continue working together.’
Who are Prince Albert’s children and former mistresses?
A month after succeeding to the throne aged 47 in 2005, Albert was in for a shock as one of his closely kept secrets was about to be revealed to the world.
For few knew, the prince had enjoyed a secret six-year relationship with a glamorous ex-Air France attendant who had also given birth to his son around 18 months earlier, in 2003.
The relationship between Nicole Coste and the Prince began following a chance encounter on a flight from Nice to Paris in 1997.
Albert was said to have been ‘enchanted’ by the flight attendant who served him champagne.
Nicole Coste, an Air France air hostess turned fashion designer, and her former lover Prince Albert at an event in April 2002
‘The strange thing is that I wasn’t even supposed to be on the flight,’ Nicole told the Mail on Sunday in 2014. ‘I was on standby that day and was filling in for a colleague.
‘I always served in First Class so I was accustomed to dealing with VIPs. When I saw Albert our eyes met and I knew this was different. There was definitely an aura around him and we hit it off immediately.
‘I found him attractive with a twinkle in his eye. He asked for my number. I didn’t write it on a napkin but on proper paper from the First Class cabin. I think he knew I wasn’t intimidated by him, that I felt comfortable in his presence.’
Albert would later call and ask her to come to Monaco for the weekend. Although flattered by the attention Nicole was determined not to be ‘a plaything’.
‘I was determined that we wouldn’t make love until we got to know each other better. Albert respected that. I was no gold-digger. If anything, I bought him gifts,’ she said.
Their liaison became the best-kept secret among Monaco society. Although they both attended red carpet events and mixed with socialites and celebrities, the majority of Albert’s subjects knew nothing of the relationship.
‘It is not my fault I fell in love with a prince,’ Nicole said.
But the relationship petered out and in its final days, Nicole discovered she was pregnant. ‘When I broke the news to Albert he was fine about it,’ she said.
When their son – who would be named Alexandre Grimaldi-Coste – was born, Albert provided financial allowance and moved mother and son into an exquisite villa on the French Riviera.
But ‘fed up of being a secret’, a month after the death of Prince Albert’s father Prince Rainier, Nicole gave an explosive tell-all interview to French magazine Paris Match, revealing her then two-year-old son was Albert’s sparking a royal scandal.
Prince Albert with his ex, Nicole Coste and their son Alexandre Grimaldi-Coste; the former lovers have remained close, with the Monegasque royal appearing with Coste at a charity event in recent years
Prince Albert was, at the time, said to be outraged by his former lover’s public declaration. Nonetheless, he went on to give his own televised interview in which he formally acknowledged that Alexandre was his son having taken a DNA test.
He decreed that his illegitimate son would not inherit the throne but vowed that Alexandre would be cared for financially.
The Prince told the New York Times in 2005 that the ordeal ‘was a very difficult moment for me.’
Nicole went on to be a fashion designer and open her own a boutique in Knightsbridge, London.
Despite the furore, Prince Albert and Nicole, now 51, have remained friends, with the pair appearing at the same charity event in recent years.
But if this revelation had been testing for the Prince, he was about to be hit with another public baby bombshell.
Tamara Rotolo – the Californian waitress and the actress daughter
A year after revealing he had fathered Alexandre, Prince Albert was forced to confess he also had a daughter named Jazmin Grace Grimaldi.
She was the result of an affair with Tamara Rotolo, a waitress turned American estate agent.
According to Tamara, she met Prince Albert while holidaying on the Cote D’Azur in 1991. They enjoyed a two-week fling which resulted in the birth of Jazmin Grace in 1992, but the baby was kept secret from the public.
Jazmin’s mother Tamara, then a waitress, had a fling with the monarch back in 1991, while on holiday (pictured together in the same year).
Now a real estate agent based in California, Tamara Rotolo, (pictured in 2010) has encouraged her daughter’s relationship with his European royal father
A friend of Tamara’s said in 2005: ‘Tamara was from a very ordinary, working-class background and had decided to go on one big holiday to Monaco. Albert was quite infatuated with her.
‘They were together pretty much every day and night and, after her two weeks were up, he asked her to stay on. ‘She told him, “I have to get back to my job”. This was reality-check time.
‘To her surprise, Albert did not forget her. He kept in touch by phone and she could contact him in a heart- beat, wherever he was in the world. The wall came down after Prince Rainier found out.
‘All contact was cut off. First she was hurt, then she got mad and decided to go to court.’
In 1993, a judge ordered Albert to provide a blood sample to settle the paternity case. But Albert’s high-powered attorneys went back to court to argue that California law had no power to order the sample. A judge agreed and ruled that the case could not go to trial.
Albert neither confirmed nor denied that he was Jazmin’s father. He acknowledged in court papers: ‘I was briefly acquainted with the plaintiff when she was on vacation in Monaco in July 1991.’
But the death of Prince Rainier more than ten years later, coupled with Nicole’s revelation, proved to be the catalyst for fresh negotiations for lawyers and, in the summer of 2006, a year after the first love child bombshell, Prince Albert formally recognised Jazmin as his daughter.
The actress and singer didn’t meet her father until she was 11 but has a close relationship with the Monaco royal now
Prince Albert and Jazmin watch the Monte-Carlo ATP Masters Series Tournament on April 19, 2018 in Monaco
A royal spokesman said at the time: ‘We can assure everyone that there are no more hidden children. This is the last one.’
Both children now carry the Grimaldi name, and while they can never accede to the throne they will be able to make a financial claim when he dies.
Talking about meeting her father for the first time when she was 11, Jazmin said in 2015: ‘I wanted that moment to connect with my father, to get to know him, and to have him get to know me.
‘Not having had that figure around, I missed that. It’s wonderful that it happened when it did, and we’ve been enjoying a great relationship ever since.’
Jazmin, now 31 and an actress, revealed her close relationship with her half-brother Alexandre as she marked his 18th birthday in a sweet Instagram post.
She shared a series of Instagram posts from his birthday party in 2021, writing: ‘It’s a celebration. Happy birthday my little brother Alexandre!’
And last year, Prince Albert posed with his two children by former lovers for the first time.
Alexandre’s existence was only made public in May 2005 when Nicole gave an explosive tell-all interview to French magazine Paris Match, claiming her then two-year-old son was Albert’s. Pictured, the 19-year-old with his half-sister, Jazmin Grimaldi, who was born in 1992
Blended family! In November, a photo showed Prince Albert of Monaco II pictured in New York together for the first time with two children by two of his former lovers, Jazmin Grace Grimaldi, 31 – whose mother is American waitress Tamara Rotolo – and her half-brother Alexandre Grimaldi-Coste, 19, the son Albert shares with Nicole Coste.
The extraordinary picture, taken in New York, was shared online by his ex, Nicole. Wearing an open-necked shirt, the Prince has his arm around Jazmin who had her arm around Alexandre.
Charlene – the Olympic champion who tamed the playboy prince
It would be in 2000 that Albert first met swimmer Charlene Wittstock in Monaco where she was representing South Africa and would go on to win gold.
But no one was expecting a romance to blossom.
Their lives were very different. Sports-mad Charlene was 20 years his junior. Her father Michael was a photocopier salesman, and her mother Lynette a competitive diver.
But the pair allowed their relationship to develop slowly outside the public eye, and they did not make a public appearance until February 2006.
The occasion was the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. French journalist Philippe Delorme said at the time: ‘She was on his arm for the entire ceremony and they made no attempt to hide their affection for each other, sharing kisses and other tender gestures.’
Their first public appearance as a couple: Prince Albert with Charlene in Turin for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin
Then, in June 2010, their engagement was announced. Albert proposed with a pear-cut diamond ring.
‘People could hardly believe it,’ Delorme added. ‘For four years, since they had first been seen together, the Monegasques had been holding their breath.’
Charlene was required to convert to Catholicism — she was raised a Protestant — and had to learn both French and the Monegasque dialect.
Delorme told the Daily Mail in 2011 that Albert finally meeting someone was a tale of Hollywood proportions: ‘If the Princess Grace story was a movie, then Princess Charlene is the remake.
‘The reality is that Albert is 52, a bit overweight, and much less fabulous and glamorous than his father was.
‘It feels a bit like a love story of an old man and a young woman rather than a story of two young lovers.’
Albert proposed with a handcrafted pear-cut diamond flanked by smaller diamonds designed by Paris-based Italian jeweller Repossi, pictured on Charlene’s finger in 2012
In her first interview after the royal wedding was announced, Charlene spoke of the challenges she faced making the transition from the life of an athlete to that of a future royal bride.
And she admitted to experiencing ‘jealousy’ among some members of Monaco’s social elite.
‘The people I mixed with in Monaco didn’t relate to my South African mentality or humour,’ she told Tatler.
‘Of course I’ve been subject to jealousy, but that comes with the territory. Although I have met some wonderful people since I’ve been living in Monaco, I regard them all as acquaintances. I only have two people I consider friends here.’
Meanwhile, comparisons between Princess Grace and Charlene were widespread, with the well-heeled citizens of Monaco hoping the next Princess will bring back some of the vitality and glamour of her predecessor.
The runaway bride?
It was set to be the wedding of the year that threatened to put Kate and Prince William’s nuptials a few months earlier in the shade.
But days before the big day, rumours began to circulate that Charlene had tried to flee the country on three occasions with a one-way ticket to Johannesburg.
A Parisian news magazine reported that Charlene had been stopped at Nice airport after allegedly learning a ‘distressing’ revelation about her future husband’s private life.
A senior Monaco detective claimed at the time: ‘Charlene had her passport confiscated so that the Prince’s entourage could persuade her to stay’.
An awkward smooch: Prince Albert II of Monaco kisses his bride Charlene after their civil wedding marriage ceremony in 2011
The rumour mill in France went into overdrive. Charlene had, it was suggested, heard talk of another illegitimate child, conceived when she was dating Prince Albert in 2005, and who would bring his tally of children born out of wedlock to three.
But the Princess would go on to dismiss the ‘hilarious’ rumours.
She said: ‘Why would he go through all this effort to have our dearest friends come join us, for us to be reluctant?’Prince Albert added: ‘My family have long been the subject of rumours born out of jealousy.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .