PRINCE Albert of Monaco has claimed he was tricked into having a child by a former Togolese air hostess whom he has installed with their son in a villa on the French Riviera.

Albert, who assumed leadership over the tiny principality after the death of his father Prince Rainier five months ago, said he was “set up” by Nicole Coste with whom he had a relationship. Their son, Alexandre, will eventually inherit a substantial portion of Albert’s £1 billion fortune.

His comments in The New York Times are certain to anger Coste, whose story about the child in a glossy magazine earlier this year was described last week by Albert as “a very difficult moment for me”.

Albert has accepted paternity of the two-year-old boy, and although Alexandre’s illegitimacy bars him from inheriting the throne, news of his existence has cheered some Monaco loyalists who were beginning to wonder if the bachelor sovereign was able to produce a child.

His father’s marriage to the actress Grace Kelly, a fusion of Hollywood celebrity and European royalty, helped to put Monaco on the map but Albert, despite feeling enormous pressure to settle down and have legitimate children, says he is “too busy” to look for a bride.

He said that finding someone to fill the shoes of his glamorous mother, who was killed in a car crash in 1982, “has not only scared me, but also many women I have known. It has scared them away”.

He lives alone in the palace, which he has purged of his father’s ageing retainers but spends much of his time in a remote mountain retreat built by his father high above Monaco.

He used to be a member of Monaco’s Olympic bobsleigh team but the sporting playboy image that characterised Albert as he waited to ascend the throne has been joined by an element of gravitas since he became head of the centuries-old Grimaldi clan.

His father was known as the “builder prince” but Albert, who drives a car that runs on gas and electricity, seems to be laying claim to the title of “green prince”, such is his interest in the environment.

He says he has seen Alexandre — who lives with Coste in the nearby French port of Villefranche — only once since the news became public, blaming it on Coste’s “attitude toward me”. He went on: “It is not a very pleasant situation. My only concern now is the wellbeing of the kid.”

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