Charlene of Monaco: this detail that seduced Prince Albert when they met (ZAPTV)
If he appeared for the very first time publicly with Charlene of Monaco in 2006, Prince Albert had met his wife many years earlier. At the time, the South African swimmer also defined the look of the heir to the Monegasque throne.
On Charlène and Albert of Monaco, everything has been said. While breakup rumors have often been mentioned, the extended stay of the princess in South Africa in 2021 had not helped. Left for his country of origin for official missions which were to occupy ten days of his schedule, Charlene of Monaco had finally left the Rock for seven months, an unprecedented situation in the principality, where concern is often mounted around the exile of the princess. Unable to return to Monaco due to serious health problems, Charlène did not hide suffer from the lack of his children, the twins Jacques and Gabriella. “I can’t wait to go home to find my children who I miss terribly. I think any mom who’s been separated from her kids for months felt the same way I did.“, she had written on Instagram. Back on the Rock in November 2021Charlène had finally cut short the reunion to leave recovering in a secret placeaway from her children and her husband.
The love story between Charlène and Albert has often intrigued aficionados of the Monegasque Crown, who still remember the beginnings of their relationship, their first outing in public dating back to 2006, during the Turin Olympics. Five years earlier, the heir to the throne had met the South African swimmer in another context, at a ball in Monaco.
“She was rather indifferent”
In 2001, Prince Albert attended the Mare Nostrum international swimming meeting in Monaco, where Charlene Wittstock, then 22, had won the gold medal the previous year. At the ball organized by the Principality after the competition, the young swimmer exchanged for the first time with Prince Albert. “Unlike the others, she was rather indifferent. Everyone was trying to impress the prince and take their picture with him because he is an important man. Charlene didn’t have that attitude and wasn’t particularly looking to meet someone at that time. She was more like ‘Ok, it’s the Prince of Monaco, so what?’ It must have played“, named the former swimmer Roland Schoeman, according to images unveiled by W9 for the documentary Albert and Charlene of Monaco: a couple in turmoilairing this Tuesday, January 3.
Ride in a Rolls-Royce, nightclub outing and stroll through the streets of Monaco, Grace Kelly’s son had given a dream evening to the swimmer, twenty years his junior. But as the documentary reminds us, the career of the swimmer occupies her mind at the time, while Albert dreams of starting a family. For several years, Albert and Charlène lost sight of each other, “distanced by force of circumstance“…until the death of Prince Rainier on April 6, 2005. Moved by his disappearance, Charlène of Monaco will contact Albert again to offer him her condolences. Two children laterCharlène and Albert are still united by the sacred bonds of marriage, despite the storms…