Following in the footsteps of the Royal Family as a chronicler for ‘El País’ for 30 years, the journalist Mabel Galaz celebrates the consort’s 50th birthday with the book ‘Letizia Real’. A work with which she makes a first assessment of her history since she met the then Prince Felipe and became Princess of Asturias until her evolution as a monarch, about which much is said but very little is known. she.
A book that ‘undresses’ Queen Letizia and about which Mabel has told us in a complete interview in which, applauding the figure of the Queen and her intense work at the head of the institution, she analyzes what aspects remain to be improved in order to win the unconditional affection of the people. Galaz has followed her entire evolution: “The journalist who decided to leave everything to become, first a princess and then the Queen of Spain.”
What memory do you have of that companion who is Queen of Spain?
Mabel Galaz: I have never worked with her but I have mutual friends. She was a very perfectionist woman, obsessed with everything going well, very professional. Very active, a little, what she is being as Queen, looking for that perfection, that excellence. A little obsessive and very competitive.
Did you already have empowerment skills?
No, I think that no one imagined, not even herself, that one day she could become the Queen of Spain. But she was a woman with a lot of character. The big difference is that before she could say what she thought and now she can’t. I think she has an image that she needs to improve, of being sometimes cold and haughty. As she seeks perfection and she does not want to screw up or be seen in a resignation, she is a woman who can seem cold, that she controls a lot, it seems that she is presenting a television news. When the camera turns off, she is a much more relaxed woman.
Is there anything left of the Letizia of childhood?
In childhood I have not studied it so much, what I have studied the most has been the change from journalist to Queen. What is left of her? I believe that there are things left and that she fights for them to remain. I think that in addition, that way of being of hers before she became a princess, that woman who went to the market, who rode the subway, who paid a mortgage, who had a life like ordinary mortals, I think that in these times of renewal of the monarchy it is good that he is in a palace and makes his voice heard so that he also knows a little about how people live.
I read that the one who is now Queen slept with jackets, with coats, because she had no heating.
His family was hard-working, very normal. When her parents got divorced, I imagine she was in quite a bit of financial straits.
What Queen is now in Spain?
I think he’s still looking for his place. A Queen who, hand in hand with Felipe VI, is trying to renew the monarchy at a time when she is highly questioned. There are many people who still do not understand why the monarchy has to exist. What they are finding is a place and reinventing, as I say, the monarchy in the 21st century.
Is she the one who rules the palace, as many chroniclers claim?
The one who commands is Felipe, without a doubt, the head of the state. She is a voice that is heard, but without a doubt, Felipe VI is in charge and it is very good that he is in charge because we have a good king.
Do you think she is a happy queen or is her reign bittersweet?
She, according to what people close to her have told me, she is where she wants to be. She is never one hundred percent happy, but she has found her place. The fact that she stopped being secondary, of being under the orders of Juan Carlos I and being queen, I think she has left her a lot in her place and she is happier.
Have your sisters-in-law, the infantas Cristina and Elena, put up any obstacles for you? Do you think he likes her worse as a Queen or as her sister-in-law?
I think that, as much as they want to, the Infantas cannot give Letizia any problem. Yes, it is true that on a personal level, they have never had a good relationship. They did not have her as a Princess nor do they have her as a Queen, now she is practically non-existent. It is a broken family, marked by the scandals of Juan Carlos I and by the problems of Iñaki Urdangarin, and that definitely broke up the family.
Has Juan Carlos been an obstacle for her and is he now taking revenge on the head of state, his own father-in-law, Don Juan Carlos Borbón?
It was not an obstacle, I think she did not agree with some of the practices that she should know about. They have never gotten along. Before they hid and now they don’t need to hide because Juan Carlos is a past stage.
Letizia and Queen Sofia. Do they go down well?
Let’s see, I think they have a cordial relationship, but it’s not the relationship they announced they were going to have. Letizia proclaimed the day she became princess “I’m going to follow the invaluable example of Queen Sofia” and I think that now what she says is “I don’t want to look like Queen Sofia” because they are two totally different people, two ways of understanding different monarchy. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other. I think that in the end that translates to having a cordial relationship.
Is the cordiality of this summer false?
Staged by the institution and because both agree to support Felipe VI.
But there have been rudeness as a grandmother, we have seen those tensions.
That is the great blunder of Letizia. She got nervous because the photos had been agreed in a certain way and, suddenly, she decided to take a photo with the girls inside the church and she tried to avoid that photo. She seems unbelievable that being a female journalist and being so intelligent, she didn’t realize that someone was capturing that. She knows it, she knows that she screwed up and has paid dearly for it.
Evidently I believe that Palma has been forgotten and that she is taking a different path than was seen at the NATO summit. She is on her way to being, more than a beloved queen, a valued queen, a very professional queen.
Will Princess Eleanor reign?
That is also for Rapel. I believe that this is the great great task that Letizia has: to train Leonor as a future princess and as a future queen. It is her subject and she works on it, but what is going to happen? Nobody knows.
Are Felipe and Letizia in love?
In eighteen years of marriage they will have had some crisis but let’s say that it works.
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