Princess Delphine of Belgium is the 57-year-old half-sister to Belgium’s King Philippe. She wasn’t really raised to be part of the Belgian royal family – she was King Albert’s love child, the result of a long-standing affair between the king and a woman from Belgian nobility. But Delphine was always raised within the aristocracy. She ended up going to court to fight for her right to be “included” in the royal family and to use Belgium’s royal style. Well, Delphine gives interviews, and she was asked this week about Prince Harry’s situation. She was enormously compassionate.
Princess Delphine doesn’t come from your usual royal background. Her birth was the result of an shocking, years-long affair between King Albert II of Belgium with Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, and she didn’t know her real father—known to her as a family friend—was actually the king until she was 18. Armed with DNA, Delphine, 57, fought for nearly two decades to prove that King Albert was her dad and won her legal battle in 2020. While speaking to the “It’s Reigning Men” podcast, Princess Delphine shared her incredible story—but she also opened up about how she relates to Prince Harry.
Explaining that she was a “politically exposed person” and “had no protection,” Delphine—who, like Prince Harry, is not a working royal—said she understood how the Duke of Sussex felt. After being asked about Harry, she said, “”I do follow a little bit of Harry because Lady Diana was just part of my life when I was in England… Then she had these children and everything, and then this death was just horrible…I feel very sorry for Harry because I think that was traumatic for him. I think Harry suffered so much, and I think he was traumatised and it’s coming out now.”
Referencing the Duke of Sussex’s recent court battle in the U.K. over his security, Delphine said, “I think there is this thing about security. I think it’s to do with what happened to his mother. I understand the guy. He’s just traumatized.”
“And I understand, so he’s doing these things, and everybody’s bullying him, but not thinking about his trauma,” Delphine continued. “And I just find it terrible because he’s just been kind of left.”
[From Marie Claire & The Daily Mirror]
She’s referencing her own childhood in England – she’s only seven years younger than Princess Diana, so she would have grown up watching Diana and Charles’s wedding and watching them welcome their sons. I think for so many women of that generation – born in the 1960s, close in age to Diana – there’s always a strong interest in Diana’s story and the stories of Diana’s sons. I don’t think Delphine is wrong either – I also think Harry has been repeatedly traumatized, and the traumas have been compounded by decades of neglect and abuse. I also think his security fight was partially about Diana too, and he likely learned more about his mother’s situation in her final years throughout his security case.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
