A Belgian car salesman has become a prince at the age of 26 after a DNA test confirmed that he is the son of Prince Laurent, the younger brother of King Philippe.

Clément Vandenkerckhove was legally recognised as Laurent’s son at a low-key town hall ceremony around six months ago, after the prince registered his paternity with Belgium’s civil registry, according to The Telegraph.

Vandenkerckhove’s mother, Belgian singer Wendy Van Wanten, whose real name is Iris Vandenkerckhove, had a relationship with Prince Laurent in the 1990s. She told her son that Laurent was his biological father when he was 16.

Four years later, Vandenkerckhove contacted Laurent and asked him to take a DNA test.

“We went to the hospital together and I remember him saying, ‘I’ll go first so you’re feeling at ease,’” Vandenkerckhove recalled in a documentary broadcast by Belgian network VTM last year.

The test confirmed the relationship, after which Vandenkerckhove said he and Laurent began having “open and honest conversations”.

His recognition as Laurent’s son gives him the same inheritance rights to his father’s private estate as Laurent’s three other children — Princess Louise, 20, and twins Prince Nicolas and Prince Aymeric, both 19.

However, Vandenkerckhove will not receive a royal allowance, is not expected to perform official royal duties and has no claim to the Belgian throne.

He could also take his father’s family name, Saxe-Coburg, but has indicated that he may keep his mother’s surname.

“I am proud of the name Vandenkerckhove,” he told Flemish daily Het Nieuwsblad. “If I were to sacrifice that family name, it would be a betrayal of everything my mother has done for me.”

Vandenkerckhove was born in August 2000. His mother met Laurent at a fashion show in Paris, and the pair subsequently began dating. Their relationship later ended, amid speculation that Laurent’s father, former King Albert II, disapproved of the relationship.

The revelation adds another chapter to Belgium’s recent royal paternity disputes.

Albert II, now 92, spent years fighting a legal battle over claims that he had fathered a daughter during an affair. He eventually acknowledged Delphine Boël as his daughter in 2020, after which she was granted the title of princess.

Boël now uses the name Delphine de Saxe-Coburg.