PARIS — One of the world’s most eligible bachelors, Prince Albert II of Monaco, is engaged to be married, a spokeswoman for the principality’s royal family said Wednesday.
The 52-year-old Albert popped the question to his longtime girlfriend, Charlene Wittstock, 32, and she said yes. Albert met the South African Wittstock in 2000. She was a competitive swimmer who represented her country at the 2000 Summer Olympics and was South Africa’s 2007 50-meter women’s backstroke champion.
Albert has officially acknowledged fathering two children out of wedlock, a son named Alexander he had with a Togolese flight attendant and a teenage girl, Jazmin, whose mother was an American waitress. Neither of these children can take the throne or bear the Grimaldi family name.
Albert’s late parents were Prince Rainier III and American movie star Grace Kelly.
