Most people in countries where there is a monarchy know how the kings or other members of the royal family met, but in the case of the Spanish Royal House, it remains a mystery.
The Bourbons are known to be one of the most discreet families of all European royalty. Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia have been described as the “mystery princesses” because of the little personal information available about them. Now, another detail that has come to public light is related to how the current monarchs met.
How did King Felipe and Queen Letizia meet?
The couple, who will celebrate 19 years of marriage this year, met in a way that remains a mystery. The main theory that has been circulated in the Spanish press is that the then Prince Felipe met journalist Letizia Ortiz at the home of a mutual friend.
According to Pilar Ayre, an expert on the Spanish royal family, it is said that Letizia and Felipe met at the home of journalist Pedro Erquicia. A story “put into circulation by nobody knows who”, which was denied by Erquicia himself.
“You know my house and you know me, do you think I can organize a meal for the crown prince to hook up with a girl? Come on, come on!” were his words, according to Ayre.
“We know how the kings of Holland met (in Seville), the kings of Norway (at a rock festival, of course!) or the kings of England (at university), but no one has told us how the meeting between Letizia and Felipe, coming from such different worlds,” said the expert.
However, she has a different theory about the origin of the Spanish kings’ relationship.
“The sailor Kitín Muñoz, who was Letizia’s boyfriend for a couple of months, introduced her to his friend Felipe and there was a crush… on his part,” Eyre says. This is an understandable hypothesis.
She says that Felipe did not have an easy conquering Letizia.
“She resisted, and this drove the prince, who had always had it very easy with women, crazy,” she writes in her blog. Her strong personality – “that she was responsive, cheeky and never shut up” – and that she worked for a living also made him fall in love with her but, above all, that he admired her.
When the engagement was announced, Felipe and Letizia had already been living together for some time. They were already together when the then journalist had to cover the ecological disaster of the ‘Prestige’ that took place in November 2002 and the anniversary of 9/11 in New York.
In addition the few details that are known, there is no official version of what that first contact between the parents of Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía was really like.
