When we talk about Corinna Larsen and Juan Carlos I, we’re not just dealing with a tabloid rumor. She herself has recounted that the King Emeritus appeared before her father in 2009 to tell him he was “very much in love” and wanted to marry her.
Corinna, however, insists she never pursued the idea of marriage. The interesting thing is that, according to her account, the key was for her family to understand that the relationship was serious.
He also told my father that he couldn’t do it right away; it would take some time. “I wanted my father to know I was serious about me,” she explained in a BBC interview.
Corinna admitted she was in love, but she feared the situation could destabilize the monarchy.
“I was deeply in love with him,” she confessed.
Was it love, or a bond of convenience?
The story begins in 2004, during a hunt in Sierra Morena. Since then, the relationship has become an open secret.
In 2008, the king transferred 65 million euros to her from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Finance. A gift “in recognition of how much I meant to him,” she said.
Corinna stated that she was “very surprised, as it was obviously an enormously generous gift.”
The end came suddenly. Immediately after his father’s funeral, Juan Carlos revealed that he had been in a relationship with another woman for three years.
“I was absolutely devastated; it was the last thing I expected,” Corinna confessed. She believed she had an exclusive relationship with him, despite his marriage to Queen Sofia, but she was mistaken. She made it clear that she wouldn’t tolerate him having relationships with other women at the same time, but by then it was too late.
I think he was mortified by what he did in the end. But for me, it was something I could never get over,” she recalled.
Lawsuits, accusations, and an unexpected turn of events
Although the relationship ended, they remained friends due to the king’s good relationship with her children. Until 2020, when Corinna filed a civil lawsuit accusing him of harassment and illegal surveillance after he refused to return the 65 million.
The king’s lawyers argued that the money was not a gift, but rather that he had asked her to safeguard it.
Juan Carlos emerged victorious in 2023, but in 2025 he filed a lawsuit against Corinna for defamation. The story continues.