When Niamh Horan met the Prince of Monaco
Prince Albert talks about life as royalty and what he would do if he wasn’t prince for a day, writes Niamh Horan
YOU know royalty is due to arrive two minutes before you meet thanks to the wave of noise that sweeps down the hall.
PR handlers, security and photographers are all in tow when HSH (His Serene Highness) Prince Albert II of Monaco sweeps into the Powerscourt Hotel in Co Wicklow for a whirlwind visit.
Three PR minders stand watch inside the room as we sit for our ‘intimate’ chat for the Sunday Independent on Friday afternoon — the only sit-down interview to which the Prince has agreed.
It’s a lot of barriers if you want to connect with someone one-to-one, but it is the monarch himself who comes to the rescue when, 15 minutes in, a polite coughing begins among his team. Our time is up and a PR woman suggests we wind things down. But the Prince isn’t playing ball: “What is it? Is something happening here?”
PR woman: “No, no, I was just wondering… I think we might be under a little bit of time pressure,” she politely tells him.
“When I have had enough I’ll tell you — thank you very much. I think I am old enough to say when I don’t want to talk anymore,” he laughs.
It’s a good insight into the man they call ‘the Prince with the human touch’ and it seems HSH Albert is part of a continuing trend of members of royalty who are comfortable enough to talk about the personal side of the royal role.
Last week Prince Harry made headlines when he told a magazine: “Is there anyone of the royal family who wants to be King or Queen? I don’t think so, but we will carry out our duties at the right time.”
Does Prince Albert agree that deep down no one wants to be King? “Yes,” he says, “Except when of course you have the opportunity to help and to address important issues and to help with the process of people having better lives. But I can understand where he [Prince Harry] is going with that.”
Over the years Prince Albert II has been known to slip out of the palace for some private time — but that only lasts until he is caught a short while later by one of the 500 CCTV cameras around his principality.
If he were to wake tomorrow morning and find himself no longer a prince for 24 hours, where would he go and what would he do? For a man with yachts on his doorstep and parties flooding his diary, his answer is telling. “I would try to do something connected to nature. I would go for a little privacy and some quiet time.”
A fiercely passionate environmental campaigner and a bee keeper, he has nine hives at the palace. He would also like to work in the area of biodiversity. His foundation has donated billions to environmental projects.
“It’s a family tradition. My great, great grandfather ‘Prince Albert I’ was a visionary — he was the only one of his time who spoke about potential dangers of over-fishing and the need to protect different species.”
When he was 24, his mother — the iconic Princess Grace Kelly — died in a car crash on the French Riviera. In 2005, his father Prince Rainier III also passed away, leaving Prince Albert II to rule. Now he speaks at 400 events a year and rarely finds time for himself.
Does the life of a Prince ever get lonely? “I can’t say ‘lonely’ but in fact I think I really need time on my own. If not every day then every other day. It is important for everyone to be able to gather one’s thoughts and to do some personal activity. I get flustered sometimes when I have too many people around me and I don’t always enjoy that. I have a little more intimacy with a small group of people. I don’t need to have a huge following,” he laughs.
On the death of his parents, he says: “No matter what age you lose one of your parents — or both of them — it is a big void and a traumatic experience. Only time heals those kind of wounds.”
Do the words of Prince Harry and Prince William — on struggling with depression and anxiety at the loss of their mother — resonate with him?
“For my sister Stephanie who was in the accident it was traumatic for a long time to come to terms with that, but I don’t think there was any issue with depression. It was just a huge sense of loss. A void of a wonderful mother who cared so much for all of us.”
Does he still think of her every day? “Oh yes, yes. Very much so,” he says. “She is very much a part of what I feel. It would have been wonderful to still have her and still be able to ask her for advice and for guidance.”
He had to pass a milestone without their counsel when he married Charlene Wittstock in 2011. More than 100m watched around the world as the couple said: ‘I do’. Looking back on the day, the Prince can see he wasn’t at his most relaxed. “I knew it was going to be a day where I would be worrying a lot.
“It’s a wonderful day — don’t get me wrong. I love the whole idea of Charlene being my wife, but to have it in front of so many people — you kind of lose the intimacy aspect. But then, of course, you are sharing it with a lot of people that you want to share it with.”
He adds: “It was a big organisation and there were a lot of things I had to think about, so it is true that in some photographs I don’t look very happy — but it was just because I was worried about everything turning out right and that it would be a great day for everybody.”
In March next year, Prince Albert II turns 60. Looking back, one of the most pertinent lessons he has learned is that to experience anything in this world, he has to reach outside the privilege into which he was born.
“Although it’s wonderfully comfortable in your own home — and to lead a certain life — you have to go out of your way to be able to find out more about the world and to help other people and engage with them. I have learned you have to go out of your comfort zone most of the time in order to be able to do that.”
For this reason he has travelled to Ireland. In addition to opening a garden in Drogheda in his mother’s name [a newly refurbished Princess Grace Kelly suite is also due to open at the Shelbourne Hotel], the Ireland Funds’ bi-annual Princess Grace Humanitarian Award is the only award the Prince has allowed his mother’s name to be attached to.
The organisation’s president and chief executive Kieran McLoughlin and chairman John Fitzpatrick both say they are grateful to the 150 donors who come from 12 countries, 38 cities and have travelled from as far away as China, Singapore and Australia for the three-day event in Powerscourt. “So far this year we have given away $18.5m, to date we have raised and donated over half a billion dollars, half of which has been raised in the last eight years. That’s half a million raised every week. And last year we supported 360 projects — that’s a project a day,” says Kieran.
Before the Prince leaves for the event, I ask if his days of shaking off his security team are behind him, and he says he still brings out his Houdini trick on special occasions: “I will slip away to the pub this evening for a couple of pints — if I get the chance.”
As he makes his way into the hotel bar, a throng follows hoping to catch a glimpse. It looks like he’ll have to wait a little longer for the sweet silence of solitude.
‘I can’t say I get lonely. In fact I really need time on my own’