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Los Angeles (dpa) - The 14-year-old schoolgirl revealed to be the illegitimate daughter of Monaco's Prince Albert II is fast getting used to life in the media spotlight, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.
Until Thursday, Jazmin Grace Rotolo had little to worry about except her grades at St Margaret's Episcopal School, a private school in the upper class enclave of Palm Desert in southern California. Her main claim to fame was winning the school's science fair.
She was outed when a French media report on Thursday named her as the second daughter to the heir to the Monaco throne.
Now Jazmin is besieged by paparazzi and is being driven around in large black Sports Utility Vehicles with tinted windows befitting movie stars, royalty and ex-US presidents like Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, who all had homes in the region. She has even learned how to wave politely to cameramen and other gawkers, the Times said.
Jazmin has also been spotted around town wearing her school uniform accompanied by security guards, and sheriff's deputies.
Her mother meanwhile, who was an out-of-work waitress when she hooked up with Price Albert in 1992, is now a successful real estate agent. But she has managed to elude the press so far and little else is known about her current situation.
Jazmin Grace and her mother live at the Palm Desert Country Club - a 200 hectare patch of lush green landscaping and waterfalls in the parched Mojave desert.
Prince Albert II of Monaco confirmed that the girl was his daughter Thursday following the report in the French daily Le Figaro.
Jazmin Grace is the second illegitimate child Albert has acknowledged fathering. In July 2005, Albert admitted being the father of the young son of a former stewardess of Togolese nationality.
According to a close associate of Albert's, cited in a book by the authors of the Figaro article, Albert has fathered no other children.
One of the most eligible bachelors in the world, the 47-year-old Albert has recently been seen in the company of a South African swimmer named Charlene Wittstock, who is nearly 20 years his junior.
Albert has often expressed wishes to marry and have children to carry on the Grimaldi family that has ruled Monaco for more than 650 years.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
