Monaco prince, 51, to finally say I do

PRINCE Albert of Monaco is engaged to marry Charlene Wittstock, a former Olympic swimmer for South Africa, a union that will give the Mediterranean principality its first crown princess since the prince’s mother, American actress Grace Kelly, died in 1982.

The palace announced the engagement of “His Serene Highness”, 52, and Wittstock, 32, who also worked as a school teacher before moving to Monaco. The statement did not indicate a wedding date but put to rest months of speculation.

Albert met Wittstock in 2000 when she travelled to Monaco for a swimming competition, said Laetitia Pierrat, a palace spokeswoman. Wittstock swam for South Africa at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, though won no medals. In the All Africa Games the year before, she won gold in the 100-metre freestyle.

Since 2006, Wittstock has lived in the principality, Pierrat said.

It will be the first marriage of a reigning prince since Grace Kelly married Albert’s father, Prince Rainier III in 1956. Princess Grace died in a car accident in 1982. &

According to protocol, royal couples must wait at least six months between the announcement of the engagement and the wedding day, Pierrat said.

She demurred when asked whether Wittstock might be pregnant. “Honestly, I don’t think so,” she said, adding she wasn’t privy to such matters but if Wittstock were, a formal announcement would probably have been made.

Royal watchers revelled at the news.

“It’s been 30 years since Grace died, 30 years they’ve been waiting for a first lady, a princess, a dream beauty, glam. And voila!” said Colombe Pringle, executive editor of the French celebrity magazine Point de Vue.

Albert took the throne in July 2005 after the death of his straight-laced father. The same year, he acknowledged he had fathered a boy, Alexandre, by a former flight attendant. The following year, he acknowledged a daughter, Jazmin Grace Grimaldi, now a teenager, born to a California woman. Neither can assume the throne as they were born out of wedlock.

Albert is the second of Rainier and Grace’s three children. The eldest is Princess Caroline, whose son Andrea is technically second in line to the throne if Albert produces no heirs, and Princess Stephanie is the youngest.