Belgium's Prince Laurent recognizes son, making car salesman a prince

Belgium's Prince Laurent has legally recognized a 26-year-old former car salesman, Clement Vandenkerckhove, as his biological son, a step that entitles the younger man to the title Prince of Belgium without a place in the line of succession or a royal allowance. The title does not flow from the recognition itself: under a royal decree of 12 November 2015, the children and grandchildren in the direct descent of King Albert II bear the title, and the decree makes no distinction between children born inside or outside marriage. Establishing filiation in law brought him within it.

With this announcement, I acknowledge that I am the biological father of Clément Vandenkerckhove. We have spoken openly and honestly about this in recent years.

The formal step came in February 2026 before a civil registrar, according to the Belgian weekly Soir Mag, which reported the recognition on August 19. Vandenkerckhove was present at the registry office and signed the documents himself. The details did not become public until this week, roughly six months after the ceremony, which took place at a town hall.

What the title carries

Vandenkerckhove will not receive a royal allowance and will not enter the line of succession. He becomes a prince in name through the civil recognition rather than through any grant of duties or income, and he is not expected to take part in the public activities that occupy other members of the royal household.

He is barred from the throne because his parents were never married. Article 85 of the Constitution restricts the crown to the direct, natural and legitimate descent of Leopold I, and legitimate means born to married parents. Christian Behrendt, a constitutional law professor at the University of Liege, told Soir Mag the princely title follows automatically once descent is legally established. The same rule that excludes Vandenkerckhove from the succession excludes Princess Delphine.

Vandenkerckhove was born on 18 August 2000 to Iris Vandenkerckhove, a Flemish singer and television personality who performs under the name Wendy Van Wanten. Prince Laurent, now 62 and the younger brother of King Philippe, had been in a relationship with her before he married Princess Claire in 2003. Their child grew up carrying his mother's surname.

Unlike Prince Laurent's other children, who grew up in public view, Vandenkerckhove spent most of his life outside royal circles, working as a car salesman and, by some accounts, in a restaurant.

Speculation about his father trailed him from around the time of his birth. His first name was read as a clue, since Villa Clémentine is Prince Laurent's private residence in Tervuren. Van Wanten, for her part, was said to have dropped hints about the paternity in the lyrics of her songs, and observers noted a physical resemblance between the young man and the prince.

How the two met

Vandenkerckhove was 16 when his mother revealed that his father was a prince. In the VTM documentary he described an earlier, unwitting encounter with Prince Laurent in a shop in a shopping centre when he was 13, years before he understood who the man was. It was strange and it all happened so fast, he said, and he had no idea who the person was.

He was 20 when he telephoned the prince for the first time, he said. After several calls the two met in person, and Prince Laurent later proposed a DNA test. He told the documentary that the two went to a hospital together and that an email from the laboratory afterward told him the DNA matched to 99.5 per cent. Paternity laboratories report a probability of paternity rather than a match percentage, and the figure is his recollection.

I might want to do that, but I am proud of the name Vandenkerckhove. If I were to sacrifice that family name, it would be a betrayal of everything my mother has done for me.

He remains attached to the surname he shares with his mother and is not expected to adopt Saxe-Coburg, the dynastic name of the Belgian royal family.

A quiet path to recognition

The relationship became public in September 2025, when a two-part documentary, 'Clement, zoon van...' or 'Clement, Son of...', was broadcast on the Flemish channel VTM on 9 and 18 September and Vandenkerckhove identified himself for the first time as the prince's son. Prince Laurent issued his statement to the Belgian news agency Belga on the afternoon of 9 September, hours before the first episode aired that evening, ending a quarter of a century of speculation.

Father and son have spent more time together since 2025, and Vandenkerckhove has spoken warmly about finally building a genuine relationship with the prince. In June 2026 he posted a photograph of the two of them, one of several images of the pair that have since appeared publicly.

His route to recognition was far less confrontational than that of another royal born outside marriage. Princess Delphine, the daughter of former King Albert II, was recognized only after a seven-year court battle, and it was the Brussels Court of Appeal that ruled in October 2020 that she and her two children were entitled to the title Princess or Prince of Belgium, also without rights to the throne. The court applied the same 2015 decree that now covers Vandenkerckhove.

Albert II, who abdicated the throne in 2013, confirmed in 2020 that he had fathered Delphine, then known as Delphine Boël, with Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps. She was born during his marriage to Queen Paola, whom he had wed in 1959, and was long kept at arm's length from the royal family.

Prince Laurent and his father

Prince Laurent's recognition of his son follows the course his own father took five years earlier. Belga News Agency reported in September 2025 that the prince, then 61, said he publicly recognized the paternity of Vandenkerckhove, who was 25 at the time. The formal legal recognition followed in February 2026 and was first reported by Soir Mag on 19 August. Prince Laurent himself keeps a transitional state endowment, set in statute at 307,000 euros a year and worth about 388,000 euros once indexed, but under rules in force since 2014 no new endowments are available to his children.

Prince Laurent has been married to Princess Claire since 2003, and their three children, Princess Louise and the twin princes Nicolas and Aymeric, are the new prince's half siblings.

The civil recognition in February 2026 is what brought Vandenkerckhove within the 2015 decree, distinct from the public acknowledgment Prince Laurent had made the previous autumn. It also makes him a full heir to Prince Laurent's estate, with the same share as his half-siblings. The Royal Palace declined to comment on the September 2025 announcement, Belga and VRT reported at the time.

It is not clear whether Vandenkerckhove will have any formal ties to the royal household beyond the title itself. What is settled is that the recognition brings no money and no claim to the throne.

Vandenkerckhove's age sets his case apart from Delphine's in another way. He was 25 when Prince Laurent first acknowledged him in September 2025, and still 25 when the paternity was recorded in February 2026. Born on 18 August 2000, he turned 26 three days before the recognition became public. In his September statement Prince Laurent said the announcement was based on a feeling of understanding and respect for those involved and was the result of joint consultation. He was describing that announcement, not the legal step that followed.

By the time the recognition drew attention beyond Belgium this week, the legal change had already stood for several months, unremarked outside the family.

What is public now

For now, Vandenkerckhove lives largely as he did before the recognition, outside the palace and without an official schedule or a state income. The title changes his legal standing and gives him the option of a new surname, not the shape of his daily life.

Whether he ever appears at royal functions remains unresolved, and neither he nor the palace has signaled a change. Like Prince Laurent's three other children, he is not expected at the 21 July national day parade or at other royal family engagements. The line of succession runs on unaffected by the February recognition, which changed the young man's legal status without altering who stands to inherit the crown.