In early March, Princess Charlene of Monaco flew alone to an official engagement in her native South Africa, and has not returned. Ever awash with rumour and intrigue, the star-studded Mediterranean principality has been left to guess when, or if, it will see her again. The sparse bulletins that have trickled out of the ‘Pink Palace’, the royal family’s 800-year-old fortress home, say that the princess developed a sinus infection and had to undergo an operation. But her long absence follows reports of severe turbulence in her 10-year marriage to the realm’s 63-year-old ruler, Prince Albert, and many in Monaco fear something deeper is afoot.
Last month, under growing public and media pressure for reassurance, Albert and the couple’s six-year-old twins, Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella, flew out to meet Charlene at an undisclosed South African location. Official photographs showed the royal couple dressed in rugged outdoor clothes and bush hats, surrounded by dense vegetation. In other photos, the twins were sitting in a tree, with blonde Gabriella displaying an outré DIY hairdo that came eight months after Charlene made world headlines with her own edgy semi-shaved hairstyle.
“I am so thrilled to have my family back with me,” wrote 43-year-old Charlene on Instagram. “Gabriella decided to give herself a haircut! Sorry my Bella, I tried my best to fix it.” Albert, whose Grimaldi family has run Monaco since the 13th century, is seen in one pose giving his wife a bear hug, but the pictures offered few answers to the questions gripping the couple’s subjects.
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