The other royal shoe drops

One of the services we like to provide here at BoBW is followup on some seemingly long-forgotten posts from the web's finest pundits. So in his relentless pursuit of reasons to bash the New York Times, Andrew Sullivan was concerned that it was doing the old nudge, nudge, wink, wink, on Prince Albert II of Monaco:

[11 April] EUPHEMISM WATCH: I think I know what the NYT is trying to tell us here:
[NYT excerpt] Prince Albert, meanwhile, has been linked to a long list of high-profile women known for appearing on the arms of middle-aged bachelors. There have been no signs of anything like a romance ... So reticent has Albert remained about marriage throughout the years of public speculation and private pressures that his father sought changes to the Constitution three years ago to allow the crown to pass to one of the princesses or their children if Albert abdicated or died without a child. [end NYT excerpt]

Take a wild guess.

So, if your wild guess was that the apparent lack of women belies an affair with a Togolese flight attendant that has produced a son, you'd be right! Or at least, that's what the woman in question says and her allegations in Paris-Match have produced only a cagey non-denial from the Grimaldis*. The bizarre thing is that Albert's family and his fellow European royals probably preferred the other assumption about his private life.

UPDATE 5 JULY: That cagey non-denial was indeed an indication that the story is true. A formal admission is coming this week, it seems.