SPAIN’S SCANDAL RIDDEN ROYALS
A LOOK AT THE SCANDALS THAT ARE PLAGUING THE CONTROVERSIAL REIGNING ROYAL FAMILY OF SPAIN
There is no doubt that the British royal family has seen a fair amount of controversy over the past two years. And while they seem to make a lot more headlines, the antics of the Windsors pale in comparison to their outrageous Spanish cousins. The scandalous Bourbon family has warring queens, missing millions, a former king who can never return to Spain, and they’ve had the odd brush with the law. Here, WHO looks at the shocking scandals plaguing the family, from the backstabbing to the downright illegal …
AN EXILED KING
Juan Carlos I ruled over Spain for 39 years, but now the 83-year-old former monarch faces prison time if he tries to return. The royal fled to Abu Dhabi in August 2020 amid a corruption scandal over money laundering and tax evasion.
Juan was forced to abdicate his throne in June 2014, passing the crown to his son Felipe VI. The palace announced the king was standing down due to “ill health” and that he thought an injection of youth might do Spain some good. “We do not want my son to wither waiting like Prince Charles,” Juan reportedly said.
But the reality was much more sinister. The ex-king had become an embarrassment to Spain due to his high living, serial infidelity and the millions he potentially embezzled through charities following shady business dealings.
While trying to contain the damage done by his father, in March 2020, Felipe, 53, was forced to strip Juan of his remaining royal titles, his annual stipend from the state of $315,000 and renounce any inheritance that might be coming his own way.
THE ROYAL MISTRESS
Juan’s 59-year marriage to his devoutly Catholic wife Queen Sofía, 82, has done nothing to quell his reputation as a serial womaniser. The “Don Juan of the royal family” is rumoured to have had thousands of lovers while he was king, and reportedly even made a pass at the late Diana, Princess of Wales, while she holidayed in Mallorca with husband Charles in 1986. But one royal mistress has refused to go quietly.
German-born Corinna zu SaynWittgenstein, 57, became romantically involved with Juan in 2004.
The Danish entrepreneur hit headlines in 2012 when she was caught accompanying the king on a very expensive and luxurious elephant hunting trip in Botswana, where Juan fell and broke his hip. Two years later, she claimed the royal gifted her $105 million due to his guilt for the “intense pressure” she came under when their affair was found out. “It was a gratitude for looking after him during his absolutely worst moments,” she told the BBC last year.
That colossal “act of love”, which was made at a time when Spain was in the midst of an economic recession, has become the subject of a criminal enquiry. Juan is under investigation by Spain’s Supreme Court over a $130 million payment he received from Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah, three years before a Spanish company landed a $7 billion contract to build a high-speed rail line in Saudi Arabia. It’s alleged that Juan laundered the money he received through his lover’s bank account and at least two charities he’d founded.
Since news of the affair broke, SaynWittgenstein has given a series of embarrassing interviews about the royal family, where she has claimed they want her “out of the picture” and have threatened her with an untimely death like Diana’s – who was killed in a Paris tunnel car crash in 1997.
“We do not want my son to wither waiting” JUAN
Sayn-Wittgenstein alleges she came home to find a book about the British royal’s death had been left in the living room of her Swedish apartment. She says she also received an anonymous threat about there being “many tunnels between Monaco and Nice”.
“From the moment I came back from that trip I was under full-blown surveillance,” she told the BBC. “This was the beginning of a campaign to paint me as this Wallis Simpson, Lady Macbeth, evil character who’d led this wonderful man astray on this trip during a big economic crisis,” she explained.
PRISONER IN LAWS
It isn’t just the former king who has a penchant for misappropriating funds. Iñaki Urdangarin, who is married to Felipe’s sister Princess Cristina, is serving a fiveyear and 10-month prison sentence for embezzlement, influence-peddling and tax fraud.
The former Olympic handball player was convicted in 2018 of using his nonprofit sports foundation Nóos Institute to siphon off up to $10 million for private use. Urdangarin, 53, ran the foundation as a vehicle to win falsely inflated contracts from regional government bodies for organising sports events, before channelling the money to personal accounts through tax havens.
While Cristina, 56 – who was a board member of the Nóos Institute – was cleared of wrongdoing during the trial, she hasn’t come off completely unscathed. After embarrassing the monarchy due to her tax evasion charges, Felipe stripped his sister and her husband of their titles as the Duchess and Duke of Palma de Mallorca.
WARRING QUEENS
When Felipe married commoner Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano in 2004, she was quickly hailed as a “breath of fresh air”. But Spain’s love affair with the vivacious TV reporter-turned-princess quickly wore off.
Accounts quickly surfaced that she was difficult to work with and unpopular among palace staff. “According to sources close to her, she is too bossy,” reported Spanish magazine Época.
Hailed as a style icon internationally, her perfectly polished appearance seemed to rub those in her own country the wrong way. “Letizia is a very smart woman. She wants to be the best in every aspect of her life: the most educated, the most stylish,” criticised royal reporter Jaime Peñafiel. “No-one can stand her,” she added.
While their official residence, Zarzuela Palace, is hailed as the largest royal residence in the world, it isn’t big enough for the two queens who live there. Sofía’s popularity casts a large cloud over Letizia, which has bubbled over into a very public spat (see outbreak). The family drama is a big headache for Felipe, who promised a more “honest and transparent monarchy” when he took the throne.
As calls within Spain for the abolishment of the royal establishment grow, it remains to be seen if King Felipe VI can keep a hold on the crown, which the Bourbons have worn since the 16th century. But he certainly seems to have his work cut out for him!