Deceived but still decent. For more than 50 years, Queen Sofia has made a good impression knowing full well that her husband, King Juan Carlos, is dating many other women. But this leniency towards her husband ended on the morning of April 14, 2012. Earlier that day, the 74-year-old monarch underwent emergency surgery in Madrid after breaking his hip during a private trip to Botswana, elephant hunting. The story goes around the world and particularly annoys the Spaniards because the sovereign who said he could not sleep due to the unemployment rate among young people, offered himself a luxurious safari, whose the cost would be around 37,000 euros. Warned, the queen, then in Greece, is ulcerated. But not for the same reason as her people.
During this controversial escapade in Botswana it was presents a certain Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, Juan Carlos’ landlady. The drop is too much for Felipe VI’s mother, who refuses to return home to support her husband. “UP [lui] says that the king has had an accident, that he is urgently repatriated to Madrid and should return. And Queen Sophia, for the first time in 50 years, he breaks down and says, ‘No, I’m not going!’”tells the historian Benoît Pellistrandi in the documentary Royal families: secrets in scandalsairs Monday, December 26 on W9.
The episode that led to the exile of Juan Carlos
From that moment the scandal broke out in Spain. The national media, so far very lenient towards the moral deviations of Juan Carloscan no longer be silent. The country suffers from an unprecedented crisis but the king still indulges in a hobby at an indecent cost, plus his young mistress. If the private life of the king was scrupulously respected, this episode turned the future of the monarch on the throne upside down. Faced with the scandal, Felipe VI had no choice but to “betray” his father by removing him from the Crown, forcing him to abdicate in 2014 and finally deciding on his exile.
Photo credits: GTRES / BESTIMAGE
