King Filip’s younger brother Prince Laurant has acknowledged that Clement Vandenkerckhove (24) is his son. Clement Vandenkerckhove is the son of the singer Wendy Van Wanten, whose real name is Iris Vandenkerkhove. Prince Laurent confirmed that he is Clement Vandenkerckhove’s biological father in a statement given to the press agency Belga.
Mystery has always surrounded the identity of the biological father of Wendy Van Wanten’s son. The singer has never commented about it in public and many had assumed that her former confident and manager Danny De Waele was her youngest son’s biological father. Mr De Waele died of cancer in 2006.
For many years there were also rumours that Prince Laurent is Clement’s father. In the late 1990s he had an affair lasting several years with the singer and even took her to Windsor where he represented the Belgian royal family at the wedding of the British Prince Edward to Sophie Rhys-Jones.
In an edition of the VRT television programme ‘Het Huis’ that was broadcast in 2021, Clement Vandenkerckhove firmly denied having blue blood and said that he wanted to leave all the speculation about the identity of his biological father behind him.