At first they were blond and well -combing children running through the gardens of Zarzuela, small figures with uniforms of French school and clean looks that appeared in the magazines with their cousins Bourbon, oblivious to the weight of the lineage and the wheel of history. Then, time did his job and childhood gave way to a youth that must have learned to walk on the edge of inheritance and scandal.
His father’s prison and his parents’ divorce were the deepest cracks in the glass structure in which Juan, Pablo, Miguel and Irene Urdangarin grew. A surname that, despite its lineage, has ended up loaded with a different meaning: that of the fall, the trial and public redemption. Today, the four children of Infanta Cristina and Iñaki Urdangarin try to keep afloat in waters that are always stirred. Some have chosen discretion, others controlled exposure. But everyone has had to find their own way of inhabiting the world after their last name ceased to be synonymous with untouchability.
That story already weighed before he reached the world. He has never wanted prominence or covers. His refuge has been anonymity within royalty, an almost monacal existence if compared to that of his cousins. When his father was convicted of corruption and sent to prison, he took a different path from public defense or complaint. He fled the noise, first to solidarity projects and then to London, where he works in Formula E as a production assistant. It does not grant interviews, it is not walking through photocalls, it does not make statements. Juan has chosen to be a prince without a cut, an aristocrat without a party. In family events, it is the one that appears in the photos as if it were passing, the one that always seems ready to leave the scene.
Pablo, on the other hand, has had no choice but to assume that his is the exhibition
With his athlete physicist and his handball player in the Fraikin BM Granollers, Pablo has ended up being the most media of the brothers. His is not the policy or the company, but the sport, an escape route that has found in the discipline and routine of training the best way not to be lost in the family storm.
Every time he jumps to the court, there are cameras that follow him. Every time he makes a statement, the holders amplify it. And yet, he has managed to move in this world with a naturalness that does not seem impossible. Your relationship with Johana Zott, A volleyball player with whom he shares the passion for sport, has been lived without widths, without the drama of other real romances. Paul has proven to be the most tempered when it comes to talking about the separation of his parents. With a maturity that many did not expect, he has limited himself to saying: “They are things that happen. We are going to love each other the same, it is something that we will have to speak as a family.” In those words there is a mixture of resignation and learning: it knows that the last name Urdangarin no longer has the immunity of other times, but also that life continues.
Miguel, the third, is a curious case
It is not as discreet as Juan or as media as Pablo. It has moved on the border between normality and the last name, between exposure and private life. He studied marine biology at the University of Southampton, away from the bubble in which he grew up. His great love is the ocean, the corals, the sharks that do not recognize him as an Urdangarin. His life has been an attempt to integrate into a world where his last name does not matter. But the last name always weighs.
Your relationship with Olympia lasted, A young Venezuelan with a considerable fortune, has put it on the radar of the media. It is not a scandal, much less, but a story that feeds the social chronicle. Miguel was surprised by the news of the separation of his parents while recovering from a ski injury in Switzerland. That accident gave him the perfect excuse to take refuge in the zarzuela, near his mother and his family. It perceives the tension of who wants a normal future but knows that it will always be observed with other eyes.
Irene Urdangarin: The girl who grew up in the middle of the scandal
Irene was 11 years old when her world crumbled. For her, the arrest of her father and the trial were the backdrop of her adolescence. Unlike his older brothers, who could live a golden childhood, Irene grew up with the feeling that his last name was an open wound in the Spanish monarchy. Maybe that’s why it has been the most chameleonic. From a demure childhood, it went to a adolescence in which modernity and trends have naturally embraced. His sabbatical year took her from Cambodia to Geneva and Madrid, a trip that also seemed an identity search. Now he studies at the University of Oxford, an election that speaks of his ambition to build his own path away from the scandal. His relationship with Juan Urquijo has been a topic of conversation in the heart press. First discreet, then inevitably public, the couple has starred in headlines after they were seen together in a safari in Madrid and, later, on the birthday of King Juan Carlos in Abu Dhabi. Irene, like her brothers, has learned that the last name Urdangarin is a round trip ticket to notoriety. You can try to escape, but there will always be a photographer in the corner, waiting for the exact moment to immortalize your life.
The children of Cristina and Iñaki have grown up in a paradox
They were raised to be part of royalty, but their last name ended up being a burden more than a privilege. They are not Bourbons (they are half -Bourbons), they are not untouchable, they are not figures of a fairy tale. They have had to learn to move in a world that looks them with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism. Each one has taken their own way to deal with family inheritance. Juan has taken refuge in discretion. Paul has assumed prominence naturally. Miguel tries to move in a world that does not label it. Irene is building her own story. But everyone knows that the last name Urdangarin will always be a reminder that the stories of princes and princesses do not always end well. In the history of the Spanish monarchy, they are the generation that had to learn to live with the fall. And they have done it, with more or less success, with more or less scars.
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