PALM DESERT, Calif. (AP) – Monaco’s Prince Albert II has acknowledged he is the father of a 14-year-old California girl, his lawyer said in an interview published Thursday in a French newspaper.

Jazmin Grace Grimaldi is welcome in Monaco but she cannot take the throne, and the royal family does not recognize her use of the Grimaldi name, lawyer Thierry Lacoste was quoted as saying in Le Figaro.

French media reports have said Albert, 48, had a brief affair with the girl’s mother, Tamara Rotolo, in 1991 when she vacationed on the Cote d’Azur. A 1992 Riverside County birth certificate identified the girl’s father as Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi of Monaco.

Monaco’s royal palace refused to comment on the “private affairs of the prince,” spokeswoman Christiane Stahl said.

However, Lacoste’s secretary confirmed Thursday that the lawyer gave an interview to Le Figaro and said his office did not contest the newspaper’s account of his comments. The secretary refused to be quoted by name and said that Lacoste was abroad and unavailable for comment.

Paternity was legally established a few weeks ago, Lacoste told Le Figaro. Albert initially had planned to keep it a secret until his daughter reached adulthood, but “the situation had become untenable for her” in recent weeks amid increasing speculation about her father, Lacoste said.

The teenager attends St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in Palm Desert, a two-hour drive southeast of Los Angeles. An Associated Press reporter and photographer were warned Thursday they would be arrested and their camera gear seized if they stepped foot on the private school property.

Albert, who has never married, acknowledged last July that he had fathered a child out of wedlock with a former flight attendant from Togo, a country in West Africa. The boy, Alexandre, is now 3 years old.

Albert told The New York Times last year that other women had made similar claims. “I don’t know of any others that could be true,” he said.

Rotolo made a paternity claim shortly after the child was born, he told the Times, but after a U.S. court dismissed the case, he thought the matter had gone away. Since the story of Alexandre hit the media, though, he said she had contacted his lawyer again.

The Palm Desert area, which includes the towns of Palm Springs, Indian Wells and Rancho Mirage, has long been a playground or retirement area for the wealthy and heads of state, including former Presidents Eisenhower, Ford and Reagan.

Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and other stars used to golf or party in the area.

Retiree Darryl Branstetter, 61, of Indian Wells, said he was moderately thrilled to have the daughter of a prince in his midst.

“I think the neighborhood deserves royalty. We have everything else. Why not royalty?” said Branstetter, leaning on his bicycle.

“I’ve been to Monaco. This feels like old home week,” he said.

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