Spain: Juan Carlos I consulted to divorce Queen Sofia

MADRID.- It was Corinna Larsen who spoke publicly about the marriage. Talk to BBC, last August, assured that her father called her in 2009 to tell her that Juan Carlos I had asked for her hand. “He also told my dad that he couldn’t do it right away, that it would take time. I wanted my dad to know he was serious with me. I thought it could destabilize the monarchy and that’s why I was never able to pursue the idea of ​​marriage. I just took it as proof of the seriousness of the relationship, ”he added.

Finn Bönning Larsen, Corinna’s father, died the same year, so only the King Emeritus could certify whether such a request had taken place. Sources close to Don Juan Carlos assure, however, that the reality was the opposite: It was the German-Danish divorcee who pressured him to end his marriage with Queen Sofia and formalize their relationship.

The lover of the King of Spain had divorced in 2005 from her second husband, the German aristocrat Casimir zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, but continued to use her married name and the noble title of princess, a situation which became untenable when her ex-husband got married to American model Alana Bunte, whom he ended up marrying in 2019.

A person who had high responsibilities in the governments of the time recognizes that Juan Carlos I was totally devoted to Corinna and planned to spend the rest of his life with her. The 65 million euros that she transferred to him in 2012 (from the money she had received from the Saudi king) would therefore not be a generous “gift of gratitude”, as she said, but rather a transfer. within the couple to pay for their future coexistence., even though he refused to return them when they broke up.

This relationship was very different from other extramarital affairs Juan Carlos I had had. Even, according to the same sources, the king of the time came to consult a law firm specializing in divorces the possibility of ending his marriage of more than 40 years. A hypothesis that he was considering, although he made no step in this direction, assures the same sources, for whom the possibility of for Corinna to become queen consort was nothing more than a dream, “or rather a nightmare”.

Even if the king gave up the throne to marry her and never became queen, the divorce would be an earthquake. This is why the alarms were lit in the government (in the last of Zapatero and the first of Rajoy) and Juan Carlos I’s relationship with the former German princess began to be seen as a “question of state”.

The accident suffered by Juan Carlos I while hunting elephants in Botswana on April 13, 2012 precipitated events. On the way back, with the wounded king, Corinna requested that the plane be diverted to Monaco to leave it, which caused a strong confrontation with the Royal House.. In the end, the plane flew directly to Madrid with the king and his lover and the relationship was made public.

Less than a month later, on May 5, the director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), General Félix Sanz Roldán, traveled to London to meet Corinna at a hotel. She reiterated, in the statement she made via videoconference in the trial for insults against commissioner José Manuel Villarejo held last January, which the head of the secret service threatened her on that date, which General Sanz categorically denied.

What the director of the CNI told her then did not convince her, in any case, of the advisability of ending her relationship with the King of Spain. According to Monarch sources, this relationship lasted for another two years, albeit with its ups and downs.

January 6, 2014 marked a turning point in the reign of Juan Carlos I. The king hesitated and lost track while reading the military Passover speech, in front of the direction of the armed forces. The forfeiture was then attributed to the poor health of the Monarch, subjected in previous years to a chain of surgical interventions. This is more likely due to the lack of rest, as the King had spent the previous day celebrating his birthday with Corinna in London and had barely been able to sleep.

The image of Juan Carlos I at military Easter has intensified the debate over his abdication, who had been in the works since the previous year, although the monarch was undecided. One of the people who most urged him not to do so was precisely Corinna Larsen, according to sources who have closely followed the process.

Juan Carlos I finally made the decision to cede the throne to his son and on June 2, 2014 announced his abdication. It was after he ceased to be head of state, when he was freest to rebuild his life, that the relationship between Corinna and the King Emeritus, which had started 11 years ago, has been definitively broken up.

In April 2015, less than a year after the abdication of Juan Carlos I and the breakdown of relations between the two, Corinna Larsen held a meeting in London with former Telefónica chairman Juan Villalonga and retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo in which they were recorded the tapes that the latter will use later against the King Emeritus. What happened in such a short time that the former German princess turned against the one who had been so generous to her?

Sources from around La Moncloa at the time ensure that after Juan Carlos I broke up with Corinna, The government ensured that the foreign leaders and tycoons who had received her as the king’s partner were informed that there was no longer a relationship between the two.. The doors that had been opened wide to him by going with the king were slammed and his influence-based and PR-based business collapsed.

THE COUNTRY

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