The love child of former Belgian King Albert II on Thursday won a seven-year-long battle over her royal rights — and can now officially call herself a princess.
Delphine Boël can now go by “Delphine of Saxen-Coburg-Gotha, princess of Belgium,” after the Brussels Court of Appeal ruled that she was entitled to the same royal titles and privileges as her father’s three other children.
“The legal victory will never replace the love of a father but it provides a feeling of justice,” Boël said in a statement released through her lawyers.
The 52-year-old artist claimed Albert was her real dad for two decades before turning to the courts over his paternity in 2013 — the year he abdicated the throne and lost legal immunity from her claims.
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Belgian King Albert II, left, and Delphine Boel, now Delphine of Saxen-Coburg-Gotha, princess of Belgium. (Getty images)
The ex-monarch rejected Boël as his daughter until this January — when he agreed to take a court-ordered DNA test, under threat of a 5,000 euros ($5,500 USD) fine for each day he refused.
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His lawyers said that “scientific conclusions indicate that he is the biological father of Mrs. Delphine Boel.”
Boel has maintained her aristocratic mother, Sybille de Selys Longchamps, had an affair with Albert between 1966 and 1984.
Rumors of the paternity scandal had first emerged in an unauthorized 1999 biography about Albert’s wife, Queen Paola.
Albert had acknowledged marital problems with Paola in the 1970s — but never admitted to having an extramarital affair.
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The former king, whose son Philippe is the reigning monarch, can still make an ultimate legal appeal.
With Post wires