ROYAL ROMEOS
By The Prince may be among the elder statesmen of the Royal Family these days but in his youth he cut such a dash he was dubbed “Randy Andy”.
When he emerged from HMS Invincible in the wake of the Falklands War with a rose between his teeth, the image summed up the public perception of the playboy prince.
He started young: when he was still a 16-year-old pupil at Gordonstoun, Andrew dated Sandi Jones, the Canadian daughter of a colonel who was his hostess at the Montreal Olympics.
The Prince had a string of glamorous girlfriends including Bond girl Katie Rabett, Miss United Kingdom Carolyn Seaward, former Playboy model Denise Martell and model Vicki Hodge (she “claimed the crown jewels”, according to reports at the time, which also showed pictures of Andrew naked in the surf). But his real love was always deemed to be American actress Koo Stark.
Alas, Koo’s appearance in an erotic film put paid to that. Andrew married Sarah Ferguson and after their divorce further relationships followed, with PR executive Aurelia Cecil, golfer Sally Prosser and businesswoman Amanda Staveley, among quite a few others. Randy Andy has not shown any inclination to settle down again. The now retired king of Spain is said to be the archetypal Latin lover, with one book even claiming he had 1,500 conquests to his name. Married to Queen Sofia since 1962 the pair are last thought to have shared a bed about 40 years ago but even before the marriage Don Juan flirted with trouble.
It is alleged that he had an illegitimate son, Alberto Solo, in 1956, whose mother has now filed a paternity suit. Prior to his abdication in 2014 sovereign immunity protected him.
Rumours have swirled around the king, including that he once made a pass at Princess Diana. It was alleged in a new book that the Spanish secret service paid one ex-lover, beauty queen Barbara Rey, millions to keep quiet. She denied it; the royal family refused to comment. Prince Albert was late settling down, marrying South African Charlene Wittstock in 2011 when he was 53. But he had at least two children out of wedlock in his younger days and there were rumours of more.
Ironically his reluctance to get married when he was much younger gave rise to rumours that he was gay: in fact a string of girlfriends included Tamara Rotolo, who gave birth to his oldest child Jazmin Grace Grimaldi in 1992. It was only in 2006 that the Prince accepted paternity, a year after his second child, Alexandre Coste, was born to Nicole Coste, from Togo.
There was gossip that days before the wedding Charlene attempted to make a run for it on the back of reports that there might be a third illegitimate child and that her passport was confiscated at Nice airport to get her to stay.
Whatever the truth, they appear to have settled down together and produced twins Gabriella and Jacques in 2014. Some comedians like to get a cheap laugh by saying that no one would want to marry twice as it would involve two mothers-in-law. Spare a thought, then, for Abumbi II, 11th King of Bafut in Cameroon.
Abumbi has nearly 100 wives, 72 of whom used to be married to his father, and more than 500 children.
The reason for this is that in Bafut, the new king doesn’t inherit just the title and the property, he inherits all his father’s wives too.
“Behind every successful man must be a very successful, staunch woman,” his third wife Queen Constance explained to CNN.
Polygamy, while less frequently practised than it used to be, is still legal in Cameroon, with no limit on the number of potential significant others.
According to the King himself, his job is to preserve the future of his people, along with their local traditions, and that all his wives are very important to him. Of the mothers-in-law, there was no word. King Carl XVI resembles nothing so much as a senior mandarin in the EU. His countrymen were thus shocked to their core seven years ago when a book emerged containing allegations about strip clubs, alcoholfuelled orgies and cavortings in Jacuzzis with naked models.
“Women were simply desserts, used as sweets to be served with the coffee,” wrote Sweden’s Aftonbladet newspaper.
The authors put it down to the fact that Carl became king when he was just 27, in the middle of his wild living years. Elizabeth II of course ascended the throne at 25. No reports of similar behaviour on her part can ever be expected to emerge.