It’s been a fortnight the Spanish royal family will want to forget, as Queen Letizia has faced explosive claims that she was dating the ex-husband of her sister, Telma Ortiz, while involved with King Felipe VI.
Ortiz’s former husband Jaime Del Burgo, 53, currently based in the UK, recently contributed to a tell-all book about the 51-year-old Spanish royal, in which he makes the far-fetched claim that he and Letizia were still romantically involved after her 2004 wedding to Felipe.
The entrepreneur – who claims he was dating Letizia when she first met the heir to the Spanish throne – also shared a selfie the Queen took in a mirror during one of her pregnancies as ‘evidence’ of their relationship on X, formerly known as Twitter, last night. A spokesperson for the Spanish royals told FEMAIL: ‘We have no comment to make about this.’
It isn’t the first time the spotlight has shone on the complicated love lives of the Spanish monarchy – with the course of true love running anything but smoothly for many of the family members.
Former Spanish king, Juan Carlos I, now 85, has been dogged for decades by rumours of countless infidelities during his marriage to Queen Sofia.
Two of the marriages of Juan Carlos and Sofia’s three children – Felipe and his sisters Elena, 59, and Cristina, 58, – have ended in divorce; Cristina’s falling apart last year following her husband Inaki Urdangarin’s 2018 jail term for financial crimes.
The sensational claims by Jaime Del Burgo, the ex husband of Queen Letizia’s sister Telma, have seen him allege that he was ‘dating’ Letizia before he married Telma.
This week he’s claimed that the Spanish Queen eventually ended their relationship – abruptly – by calling him and saying: ‘We can’t continue seeing each other’ in August 2011, seven years after she wed the Spanish monarch. In 2012, Del Borgo got engaged to Letizia’s younger sister Telma.
Telma, who already had her daughter Amanda from her relationship with ex-partner Enrique Martin Llop, accepted the proposal after just two months of dating.
At this time, Jaime claims he was still close to Letizia and Felipe. Author Jaime Peñafiel wrote in his new book Letizia & I: ‘When [Jaime del Burgo] is going to marry Telma, it is Felipe who advises him on the marriage agreements and, over the years, they have maintained a great friendship.’
In 2012, Del Borgo and Telma relocated to New York to start their married life – but Telma returned to Barcelona the same year before announcing their permanent separation in 2014.
This week, Telma’s ex Jaime Del Burgo shared an undated selfie the Queen, 51, took in a bathroom mirror during one of her pregnancies as ‘evidence’ of their relationship on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In the selfie, the royal can be seen wearing a black pashmina – which Jaime claims belonged to him – and he also typed out a message, supposedly sent to him by the Spanish Queen.
It read: ‘Love. I wear your pashmina. It’s like feeling you by my side. It takes care of me.
‘It protects me. I count the hours until we see each other again. Love you. Get out of here. Yours,’
After sharing the image, other X users questioned the validity of Jaime’s claims – given there is no evidence that Letizia sent him the photo or accompanying message. The businessman has since deleted his X account.
A spokesperson for the Spanish Royal Family told FEMAIL: ‘We have no comment to make about this.’
Telma’s partner is now Irish lawyer Gavin Bonnar and the couple welcomed their first child together in October 2021, when Telma was aged 47. Gavin shares two children with his first wife musician Sharon Corr.
In her recent album The Fool & The Scorpion, Sharon wrote lyrics including ‘the queen’s twisted sister’ – which fans speculated were inspired by her children’s new step-mother.
Telma and her family prefer to stay out of the limelight – but it’s thought she still has a close relationship with her sister, with the mother-of-two invited to several special family occasions, including the Princess of Asturias Awards in 2019.
At the lavish event, she watched her niece Princess Leonor, 18, who is heir to the Spanish throne, give a speech.
This summer, when in Madrid to attend a talk on renewable energy starring Amal Clooney, she told the media her nieces were ‘the best’.
Letizia married high school teacher Alonso Guerrero Perez, nine years her senior, in 1998 following a ten-year romance – with the pair meeting when the future Spanish queen was just 16.
The couple tied the knot in a civil ceremony in the town of Almendralejo, Badajoz, but divorced the following year after just one year of marriage.
Letizia met husband-to-be Felipe in 2002, while she was working for popular TV channel 24 Horas, with the couple announcing their engagement just a year later.
Letizia’s status as a divorcee, as well as her former relationship with the high school teacher, caused controversy in Spain ahead of the royal wedding, suddenly thrusting Alonso into the spotlight.
However, her previous marriage came back to haunt her when her ex-husband published a novel that seemed to be inspired by his controversial romance with the Spanish royal.
Guerrero Perez, from Alcalá de Henares, Spain, wrote a fictional book called El Amor De Penny Robinson, or The Love of Penny Robinson.
The novel tells the story of a man – who has the same name as the author – suddenly thrust into the spotlight due to his ex-wife becoming queen.
In the book, the main character even describes how he took a nude snap of his first love, Laura, a character believed to be based on Letizia.
The protagonist falls in love with two women – Laura and Nené – who are both thought to be based on Letizia.
The book then tells the story of how the second woman, named Nené, becomes Queen – leading to the protagonist becoming a ‘media character’.
The older sister of King Felipe VI, Infanta Cristina of Spain, now 58, found herself at the heart of one of the Spanish monarchies biggest scandals – after her husband, now ex, was jailed for financial crimes.
Businessman and retired handball player Iñaki Urdangarin, 54, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 for embezzlement and money laundering in excess of £4.5 million through his non-profit organisation, the Noos Institute.
Urdangarin married Infanta Cristina in 1997 and the couple share four children together, all in their late teens or early twenties: Juan, Pablo, Miguel and Irene.
The couple shared a joint statement in January 2022 to Spain’s State News Agency saying they were to separate.
The end of their relationship came after he was pictured holding hands with another woman, allegedly an unnamed co-worker at the Imaz & Asociados law firm, in a photo published by the Spanish magazine Lecturas.
In a bid to distance themselves from these corruption claims, the Spanish royal family removed the section dedicated to Iñaki Urdangarin on their website.
Infanta Cristina was also investigated for corruption, but was acquitted of any charges. However, her brother King Felipe VI stripped her of her title of Duchess of Palma in 2015.
Now living in exile in the United Arab Emirates, largely estranged from his wife and family, Juan Carlos I, 85, has been perhaps the Spanish royals biggest purveyor of scandal in recent decades.
Although now best known for his misdeeds, he was once one of the most glamorous men on the world stage. Juan Carlos, who has three children – two daughters and a son – with wife Queen Sofia enjoyed a close relationship with Queen Elizabeth and the British royal family; a friendship with King Charles continues.
A onetime hero to Spaniards thanks to his rejection of the legacy of dictator Francisco Franco and the ushering in of a new democratic, liberal era after decades of authoritarianism, his people eventually grew tired of the rumours about his less than salubrious behaviour.
Juan Carlos’ adulterous bedding of hundreds of women – with some claiming he has slept with 2,000 women – and accusations of financial impropriety are likely to be his lasting legacy.
The Spanish public finally turned on their king in 2012 when he took an elephant-shooting trip with his former lover, the aristocrat Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn.
Amid increasingly poor health, abdication and self-imposed exile came two years later, with the king letting his son, Felipe IV, take over.
While the 2007 separation of Princess Elena, the eldest daughter of Spain’s King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, was low-key in comparison to that of her younger sister, it still put the royal family back in the headlines.
Elena, now 59, and her husband Jaime de Marichalar, who married in Seville Cathedral in 1995, separated after 12 years of marriage.
The Spanish princess announced that she was leaving her husband and taking her two children with her. Elena’s eldest child Felipe Juan Froilan, now 25, was the first grandchild for Juan Carlos and Sofia. The couple also had a daughter Victoria Federica, now 23.
