Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano, the queen consort of Spain, will turn 50 on September 15, even though it doesn’t look like it. Look younger. She is addicted to the image of her. Hence, she has undergone surgery several times and seems remodeled: face, nose and chin.
He knows how to pose She likes photos, but not being interviewed. Thousands of people follow her around the world and Spanish women like to copy her looks, her way of combing her hair and many envy her thinness.
Although she has a reputation for being bossy, authoritarian and unpleasant, together with her husband, the King Philip VI, all those criticisms go unnoticed. Since 2014, when she assumed the crown, Letizia has passed the real test of participating in almost 3,000 public events where she usually chooses silence, a rule that she was taught since she got married, leaving in the past her well-known self-confidence, typical of a commoner , with barely 10 years of experience in the halls of the palace.
Since then, the queen proved to be totally different from Sofia and all the 10 queen consorts who preceded her in the Bourbon line, since 1701, starting with her lack of noble titles in the family tree.
Divorced and from a middle-class family, daughter of the journalist Jesús José Ortiz and the nurse María Paloma Rocasolano, Letizia has lived more years in the “normal” world than among royalty. Hence, the responsibility of leading the Royal House of Spain meant a weight that she knew how to assume quickly.
The taxi driver’s granddaughter learned to act noble. She put up with her father-in-law, Juan Carlos I, who never had affection for her son’s wife. And she already knows that she should not dispute her mother-in-law Sofía’s place as grandmother because there are still those who remind her of that scene in the cathedral of Palma de Mallorca, on Easter Sunday 2018, when she had a public encounter . That time, she tried to prevent the queen emeritus from being photographed with her granddaughters.
Some time later, the newspaper El País obtained an explanation of the episode.
“Queen Letizia’s failure was to tell Queen Sofía, in very questionable ways, that the photos with the girls should not be taken in the church; that this was neither the time nor the place. And Sofia’s, who has a stubborn character, not realizing that she is no longer the queen. She is her daughter-in-law. And Sofía insisted until the other one jumped”, highlights the statement of one of the witnesses. It is known that Letizia looked at her badly. untamed.
Queen Sofia’s revenge came days later: the queen consort had to open the car door for her mother-in-law when she arrived at the hospital to visit King Emeritus Juan Carlos, who underwent knee surgery.
Since then, they maintain courtesy, although it is clear that they do not understand each other.
Queen Letizia’s failure was to tell Queen Sofía, in very questionable ways, that the photos with the girls should not be taken in the church; that this was not the time or the place
of arms to take
Letizia, however, follows her mother-in-law’s leadership in matters of human character. She contributes to the development of different aid programs in Africa and deals with hundreds of issues related to social assistance.
Although constitutionally she is not the first authority of the State, she assumes that role when the circumstances really require it. It happens, for example, when he leaves Spain to develop cooperation tasks and he is worshiped, as if he were the king himself. She orders and commands.
He is not a believer in a country of Catholics or a practitioner in a country full of churches. In fact, they say that he had the wording of the invitations from the Royal House modified: “His Majesty the King, may God keep him.”
And although Letizia comes from divorce and civil marriage, Spanish Catholic society does not care. They want it that way. In contrast, the nobility charges her everything, and she knows it. That is why she does not appear at the neighboring Club de Puerta de Hierro, in Madrid. She prefers to meet with great actors and art cults, together with a coffee in the Palacio de la Zarzuela.
Letizia, who before her marriage worked as a journalist and worked in several newspapers and television channels, being a presenter of the Spanish Television Newscast until a few months before marrying the then Prince Felipe, on May 22, 2004, seeks not to arouse controversy or hug anyone in public.
He respects the rite and protocol of royalty, although he continues to hang out with his middle-class friends and goes to the movies very often. He is devoted to his daughters and never loses his composure. Nothing extravagance. He eliminated, for example, the maidens for his daughters. And she gets off her heels to combat the chronic metatarsalgia that has afflicted her for a long time.
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Past and future
he had the luxury of dancing salsa, vallenato and merengue and tried the aguardiente
Gone is that abnormal shadow of Letizia’s trip to Colombia in 1994 that, according to rumors, took her to Cali where she had little honorable behavior.
He attended the VIII Latin American Meeting of Faculties of Social Communication. The future queen had not yet graduated: she was 22 years old and had worked for a year in a pizzeria in Madrid when she arrived in the capital of the Valley. According to her hostess, Amparo Sarmiento, in an interview with El País, Letizia Ortiz only “had the luxury of dancing salsa, vallenato and merengue and tried the brandy.”
She also turned the page on the alleged abortion that was performed in a Madrid clinic before marrying Felipe VI. According to Jaime Peñafiel, an expert on monarchies, this was the result of a relationship prior to that of the then prince. It has also been said that her first husband, the writer Alonso Guerrero, has received money for keeping the details of her marriage secret.
However, Guerrero himself has denied it: “The Royal House has never offered me money for keeping silent. If they had, I would not have accepted, just as I have not accepted many other things. My silence is my own choice,” he expressed in 2018.
The Royal House has never offered me money to remain silent. If they had, I would not have accepted, just as I have not accepted many other things. My silence is a choice of my own
What is certain is that Queen Letizia is obsessed with bad omens. Peñafiel, who is not exactly her adept, does not stop stating in public that Princess Leonor will never become queen because the monarchy will end soon. But, Queen Letizia does not believe it and does everything possible so that her eldest daughter is formed as heir to the throne.
Luis García Montero, director of the Cervantes Institute, assures that the kings are aware of the debate on the monarchy and of the need to adapt their functions to the 21st century. “Felipe is a decent king, the first Democratic king. His marriage to Letizia is one more example, ”he explains.
According to a survey recently carried out by the IMOP institute for the magazine Vanitatis, Felipe VI is at the head of popularity among the Bourbons. These results coincide with those of other surveys. The monarch, however, reached a lower figure than in previous years.
Letizia maintains a modest fifth place behind her husband, her mother-in-law and her daughters, only surpassing Juan Carlos I. “30 percent estimate that the queen is the one who has contributed the most to improving the image of the Crown in the last year , which makes her the best ally of Felipe VI”, states the publication.
Felipe is a decent king, the first democratic king. His marriage to Letizia is one more example
At the same time, the Paris Match magazine usually places Queen Letizia among the women belonging to the most popular European monarchies.
“One of the roles of a royal family is to offer their subjects irreproachable and inspiring behaviour. Letizia of Spain has had a clear success in this sense in the Zarzuela palace. She and Philip swept away the dark clouds of the late reign of Juan Carlos. Letizia has helped relaunch the Bourbon machinery”, they highlighted.
Jesús Rodríguez, a journalist from El País, tells that the queen has a visceral imprint, practically unknown, before the coldness that she assumes in public, when remembering her return to the Faculty of Information Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid.
“That was Ortiz. Smart, funny, intense; imitating teachers’ voices, remembering situations and going back to being that 18-year-old girl who wanted to be a journalist. At the end of the act, she put her hands to her heart and did the trick: ‘Fifty years is a nice figure to keep trying to do things well in the place where each one belongs’”.
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The queen is a woman with a complex personality and an indomitable temperament
José Antonio Zarzalejos, former director of the ABC newspaper and author of the book Felipe VI. A king in adversity, he clearly defines her: “The queen is a woman with a complex personality and an indomitable temperament.”
That is the image left by the strong Letizia who has been able to consolidate the 18 years of marriage with Felipe VI ruling in silence, adjusting to the labels and protocols, but without ceasing to be, in her essence, a middle-class professional woman. and intelligent, who reaches her fifth decade of life prepared to stay for many more years in her place as consort of the Spanish head of state.
JUANITA SAMPER OSPINA
TIME CORRESPONDENT
MADRID
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