Holiday in Belgium: King Philippe (62) and Queen Mathilde (49) were married on Sunday 23 years ago. We now know the love story of Willem-Alexander and Máxima, but how did their Belgian colleagues meet?
The two meet in 1996, reportedly on the tennis court where they both sometimes hit a ball. Filip is still a prince and Mathilde works as a speech therapist. “I saw her from afar and I approached her to have a chat,” the Belgian king told the broadcaster RTB extension. “I knew right away that this was going to be my future wife.”
At first, they keep their relationship a secret. “We didn’t want to show up right away, because a date was scheduled,” says Filip.
They announced their engagement in November 1999, three years after they met. The couple wastes no time, as their wedding takes place less than a month later. They got married on December 4, 1999, at the town hall of Brussels.
Their love is sealed in October 2001 with a daughter, whom they name Elisabeth. In a press conference about the birth, Filip stresses that his daughter will be Belgium’s first female monarch. Because our southern neighbors have never had a woman head of state before. “We will do everything so that she can fully develop. In her own way.”
Filip and Mathilde are not very open. They give few interviews, especially not about their personal life. But the love between the royal couple seems to be good. Filip says in 2004, just before they’d been married for five years: “She’s a wonderful wife and a wonderful mother to my children.” Three more children followed: Gabriel (2003), Emmanuel (2005) and Eléonore (2008).
Just like the Dutch royal family, the Belgian is not without scandal. In the book King’s affairs Frédéric Deborsu says that the marriage between Filip and Mathilde was not born out of love, but that it was arranged. The reporter says that Filip is gay and was in a secret relationship with a count.
Complete nonsense, the (then) prince claims in an answer. “The day Mathilde said ‘yes’ to my marriage proposal was the happiest day of my life.” She says their four children are “surrounded by love.” According to Thomas de Marchant et d’Ansembour, the count in question, the story of Deborsu is made up. They are good friends, but nothing more.
As of 2019 Filip and Mathilde have been married for twenty years. A great opportunity for the royal couple to give a rare personal interview. The interview with the French-speaking broadcaster RTB extension takes place in their home in Laeken. “I must say, after twenty years of marriage, I could not have imagined at the time that it would be like this. Of course, I knew the girl since then. And I said to myself, I think everything is in her. But it is even more» .
What makes them particularly strong is that they coordinate their duties well in both kingship and parenthood. Both have their own powers, they say. “After twenty years we start to know who is stronger at one thing and who is stronger at the other,” says Filip.
The king explains why he is still so in love with his wife after all these years. “There is something, a secret, that has touched me with my wife, and it’s a flame that is always there,” says Filip. “And from time to time you have to rekindle it. It’s true that you change, that things evolve … But somewhere, that little flame is why I chose her, and she touches me, and always will.”
