Report: Former King Will Take Paternity Test, With One Caveat

His options: Pay a $5,600-a-day fine or submit to a paternity test. The former king of Belgium has opted for the latter, though not without plenty of teeth gnashing, according to the New York Times, which is the only media outlet that is so far reporting the news. King Albert II, who abdicated in 2013, has been dogged by a 51-year-old woman's claim that she is his daughter. He was ordered to take the test in relation to Delphine Boël's claim six months ago, but had refused. Last week he was ordered to pay that fine, and according to the Times, his lawyer on Monday said King Albert would comply with the order—on one condition.

He will take the test so long as "the results are kept secret until Belgium's highest court rules on the appeal against the order," said the lawyer, a ruling that could not come for years. Boël claims then-Prince Albert had an affair with her mother, the Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, while he was married, and that he provided care for her in secret. But when his elder brother, King Baudouin, died childless in 1993, Albert had to unexpectedly assume the throne—and that's allegedly when he severed all ties with her. (Boël's legal father has already taken a DNA test.)