Former king Albert’s DNA results must be released to Delphine Boel

Belgian artist Delphine Boel has won another round in the fight with the royal family over paternity. Former king Albert II must release the results of the DNA test he was forced to undergo earlier this year.

Boel has been trying for six years to prove that Albert II, father of King Filip, is her biological father. According to Boel’s mother, Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, Boel is Albert’s daughter, and he acknowledged her as such privately during their 16-year affair in the 1960s and ’70s.

In a televised interview in 2013 – the same year that Albert abdicated the throne to Filip – the baroness, who now lives in the south of France, discussed the affair and Boel’s formative years openly. She produced photographs of Boel as a little girl together with Albert. The king was married to Queen Paola at the time.

A question of ‘weeks or months’

Sybille’s former husband, who raised Boel as his own daughter, has also confirmed that Albert, now 85, is her biological father. A DNA test he submitted proved that he was not her biological father.

If proven to be Albert’s daughter, Boel, 51, stands to inherit, though how much would depend on whether Albert dies before Paola. According to their marriage contract, Paola will inherit a lion’s share of Albert’s estate, which would then only go to the children she had with Albert. In other words: King Filip, Princess Astrid and Prince Laurent. Boel has repeatedly said that she simply wants her father to acknowledge her.

The former king had appealed the order to release a DNA sample, and the appeals court has now refused to overturn the order from a lower court. According to former history lecturer and royalty watcher Mark Van den Wijngaert “it is probably a question of weeks or months before the court makes an announcement about paternity”.

Photo, from left: Lawyer Yves-Henri Leleu, Delphine Boel and lawyer Marc Uyttendaele
©Dirk Waem/BELGA