For more than two decades, Claude Palmero held the purse strings of the House of Grimaldi, hereditary rulers of the millionaire-packed Mediterranean principality of Monaco since the 13th century and among Europe’s glitziest royals, reports The Guardian.
For 22 years as principal asset manager to the house’s current head, Prince Albert II, the bespectacled accountant handled its investments, oversaw its expenditures and – as best he could – balanced its books.
Now he is spilling the beans, and in devastating fashion.
Unceremoniously sacked last summer amid unverified allegations made on an anonymously run website of financial impropriety at the palace, Palmero, 67, is not only suing for €1m but is also, it seems, bent on doing more than mere pecuniary damage.
Five black notebooks filled with details of the family’s dealings have found their way to the French media, and Palmero has spoken at length to Le Monde for a series of articles shocking even in a playground for the super-rich.
“I think everyone knew their lifestyle was … glamorous,” said an employee of a company supplying domestic staff to some of the principality’s moneyed residents. “[But] I’m not sure we knew they managed to get through quite that much. Even in a place that’s used to the way billionaires behave, it’s raised some eyebrows.”
Among the notebooks’ more sensational revelations, according to Le Monde, are the spending habits of Albert’s wife, Princess Charlene, 46, a former swimming champion who as Charlene Wittstock represented South Africa at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Charlene, who married Albert in 2011 and gave birth to twins Jacques and Gabriella three years later, has an annual allowance of about €1.5m, the notebooks reveal. In December 2019, Palmero noted she had spent “about €15m in the past eight years”.
The notebooks record that Albert, the son and heir of Prince Rainier III and the former Hollywood star Grace Kelly, who has a personal fortune estimated at €2bn, has routinely topped up his wife’s allowance.
In 2010, before their marriage, the prince approved an additional payment to Charlene of €700,000, Palmero recorded, adding: “Be careful not to increase these allowances at a time of [economic] crisis.”
In 2016 the princess received €77,000 in cash, “less than the year before, but still far too much,” and in 2017 there was €600,000 “to pay off her overdraft”. In 2020, Palmero recorded a one-off payment of €200,000, plus €5,000 in cash.