a boat, a lobster and very little clothes

Pandora’s Box has been opened. After the German press published the famous images of the emeritus with Barbara Rey eating a paella in the garden of their chalet, there are many who have dusted off the drawers to recover more indiscreet photographs of Juan Carlos I. For example, Antonio Montero and Marisa Martín Blázquez, who revealed this Friday that they are in possession of unpublished material that could see the light of day very soon: a seafaring journey of Felipe VI’s father with Marta Gayáwho they claim has been ‘the love of their life’.

“At the time it was unthinkable to publish that. Now, things have changed,” the paparazzi said in TardeAR. These are some images taken during a day of sailing between Mallorca and Menorca on the Fortuna, the ship of the Spanish royal family. It was September 1999 and Don Juan Carlos, after finishing his official vacation with his wife, Queen Sofía, and his children in Marivent, was enjoying his desired private rest in the company of his great friend Marta Gayá. The businesswoman was one of the people closest to the emeritus, who told his friends that he had “never been as happy” as he was with the Mallorcan woman.

The images immortalized a couple enjoying the sea and the sun, both dressed in swimwear: “The emeritus wore a bathrobe and then took it off. She wore a cap with a visor to protect herself from the sun,” Montero said. They traveled from Mallorca to Cala Fornells in Menorca, where they ordered a lobster stew from a well-known restaurant: “They didn’t get off the boat, they took the food there,” they add. They were accompanied by four bodyguards who ensured their safety and although the photographer who discovered them was quite far away, they assure that the images are “of good quality.”

The great love of the emeritus

Don Juan Carlos and Gayá met in Palma de Mallorca in 1989, but they did not strengthen their friendship until a year later. A member of a wealthy Mallorcan family, Gayá married very young but soon divorced her husband, a prestigious engineer on the island. “Marta has been the most discreet and loyal person in Don Juan Carlos’s life. She always remained in the background. She has never made statements. She avoids the press and they were never photographed together. She used to frequent Marivent in the summer. They both “They liked sailing, so they went sailing. And in winter they met to ski in Switzerland, in places like Gstaad or Saint Moritz, away from prying eyes,” explained journalist Jaime Peñafiel for Vanity Fair.

Their relationship has gone through ups and downs but they assure that since Don Juan Carlos settled in the Arab Emirates to distance himself from the controversies in Spain, their bond has been strengthened again. They affirm, in fact, that Marta’s visits to Abu Dhabi or her dates in Switzerland are not strange.