Remember When? Taki Theodoracopulos claimed Prince Albert of Monaco kidnapped and drugged the woman he supposedly forced into marriage.

Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene of Monaco 

and H.H. Pope Francis of Rome

Talk about conspiracy theories and fake news and, and, and ...

Today the Prince and Princess remain happily married, but in 2011 a story went around claiming Albert was pretty much a current day Marquis De Sade, who 'kidnapped, drugged, and then forced fiancee Charlene Wittstock, to abide by the agreement she had signed with the Principality of Monaco.'  Oh, her dad was supposedly held hostage at the time as well.  (Story here.)

I posted about the story after it was posted on a blog by someone I lost track of.  It's amazing how little things have changed online, in fact, how much worse things have become.  People skirmishing about the same issues, though the principals may have changed - yet conservative conspiracy enthusiasts still fall for every sensationalist rumor that pops up in their feed.  I wrote the following at the time the story broke:

I came across a post on Prince Albert of Monaco claiming the Prince kidnapped and drugged the woman he supposedly forced into marriage. (Grounds for annulment!) Taki Theodoracopulos, a Greek socialite - or former playboy-sportsman turned conservative pundit/journalist, thus making himself appealing to the 'always right' wing, who supposedly makes a living denouncing vulgarity among the rich and famous, claims to have intimate knowledge on what goes on in the Court of Monaco. Maybe he does, since he appears to suggest the Prince is some sort of latter day Marquis De Sade with rumors that he plays around - quite roughly - with male and female sex partners - in groups. How very French. So how is it that such a story isn't red hot news all over the MSM/Hollywood gossip circuit? He drugged his wife and forced her to marry him in a ceremony broadcast on TV? C'mon! That's a Dynasty script.

Maybe the reason no one takes the story seriously is because few people care or follow anything Greek in these days of economic collapse, and maybe because what goes on in the Las Vegas-style Principality of Monaco stays in Monaco. - Court Gossip

It's a good reminder to 'document' the fake news cycle and rumor mongering - to some degree - in order to replay it to remind people that a great deal one reads online is made up and scandal inducing, to distract people from the truth.  I think it's safe to say much of the court gossip in the Vatican is just as unverifiable as the Prince Albert and Princess Charlene story.  Unless she's still drugged...  Just remember, there are sources online deliberately manipulating opinion with fake news and rumors to divide and anger people.  Especially those Catholics who never quite graduated from debate class and view everything through an academic/post-graduate-degree lens, as if they are writing and revising some sort of perpetual  dissertation.  (I think there is a priest who has been doing that for well over a decade now.)

They look very happy to me.