Spain’s King Juan Carlos abdicated in June 2014. It was a big deal at the time for many reasons. It was said that Juan Carlos did not want his heir, the current king of Spain Felipe, to “wither on the vine” like Prince Charles. It was also a big deal because Juan Carlos was hand-picked by General Franco to lead the newly re-formed monarchy, and Franco expected Juan Carlos to continue his legacy. It didn’t exactly turn out that way. And finally, Juan Carlos’ abdication was a big deal at the time because nearly all of the royal family was embroiled in various financial crimes or unseemly schemes. All except for Felipe and Letizia, basically. When Felipe and Letizia became king and queen, there was less drama about finances and schemes and such. But even thought Juan Carlos is no longer king, he’s still involved in some shenanigans. Which is why King Felipe had to reject his “inheritance” and strip his father of his royal stipend. Wow.
On Sunday night, Spain’s King Felipe VI, the husband of the glamorous Queen Letizia, renounced his personal inheritance from his father and stripped the former King Juan Carlos of his annual stipend after it was alleged that Felipe VI was poised to receive millions of euros from a secret offshore fund with ties to Saudi Arabia.
The statement issued by Spain’s royal household came after a report named the King as a beneficiary of an offshore fund set up by his father in 2008. At the time, Juan Carlos was still in power. Juan Carlos abdicated in 2014, after a series of scandals sent his popularity into irreversible decline. Bloomberg writes that ‘Felipe’s decision deals another blow to his father’s already-tarnished reputation and signals palace concerns about how his business dealings could damage the monarchy.’
Juan Carlos, 82, has, according to the Guardian, continued to receive an annual stipend from the state, amounting to close to £175,000 in 2018. The alleged offshore account, named as the Lucum Foundation, held around €65 million in funds that were described as a ‘donation’ from ‘the king of Saudi Arabia’, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
The former king had been informed of his son’s decision to renounce his inheritance as well as ‘any asset, investment or financial structure whose origin, characteristic or purpose may not be in accordance with the law or with the rectitude and integrity’ of the crown, the statement added. Juan Carlos reportedly requested to make public that he had never informed King Felipe about either foundation, according to the statement.
Since taking the throne, Felipe has made a point to regain the royal family’s footing after a multitude of scandals. Not least his father but also his sister Cristina, in 2014 was the first royal to face criminal allegations in court since the reinstatement of the monarchy in 1978. She was questioned about her knowledge of the financial affairs of her husband, Inigo Urdangarin, a former Olympic handball player and executive at Telefonica SA who is now in jail for embezzling public funds.
Holy sh-t about all of this: “The alleged offshore account, named as the Lucum Foundation, held around €65 million in funds that were described as a ‘donation’ from ‘the king of Saudi Arabia’.” What was Saudi Arabia buying for that kind of money? And to the King of Spain? It kind of makes one wonder about whether the House of Saud has been spreading around eight-figure “donations” to other royal houses and world leaders. How much money got “donated” to the Trump family? The Windsors? Anyway, it’s so harsh! Juan Carlos won’t even get a stipend from the state anymore. How is he supposed to live on €65 million in shady Saudi donations?
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
I actually commend Felipe for doing this. His father should consider himself lucky that he’s been able to hang around as long as he has with all the shenanigans he was involved in with his daughter years back. That whole family is pretty shady, except for Felipe. He seems like a pretty straight arrow and must have had very good reason for doing this. Juan Carlos and Sophia really should have faded into the shadows a while ago. Sophia in particular clearly has not let go of not being queen anymore.
Felipe is BFF with the royal family of Saudi Arabia pls.
Off topic, but Jaysus, he looks like Fotis Dulos.
King Felipe gives me hope, in face of what an utter mess the UK monarchy is.
Ps…sometimes to relax, I look at videos of Felipe and Letizia at home. I came to know more about them via this blog.
Thanks for covering them!
Seriously, this plot is better than any show I have watched in awhile.
I wonder what Queen Sofia thinks of all this. Every time Juan Carlos does something stupid or shady, she gets hit with the repercussions too. He cheats on her and then it becomes a public scandal that leads to his abdication. Now this.
She just wants to be Queen and put Letizia in her place. Her nastiness at the Easter celebration and using Lerizia’s kids was reprehensible. I hate that Letizia opened door for her like a freaking servant in a subsequent appearance to help calm waters. She is Queen of Petty other half.
Am sure she will find a way to blame Lettie and throw her under the bus to embiggen herself as the biggest victim ever to reach victimhood. The former Queen is not a nice person.
You two covered Sofia nicely. No need for further comment.
He should have done it on the Ides of March, for dramatic effect.
LOL!
Funny, Mina_Esq.
Thank you for covering them Kaiser. Many of us don’t know much about the other royal
Houses spread around Europe and the globe. It’s nice to be able to compare and contrast.
And yes, my thoughts went there too: who knows who else has been given “donations”.
I don’t feel sorry for any of them. Enough of their privileged living at the expense of the poor.
“How much money got “donated” to the Trump family?”
Well, Ivanka got 100 million dollars for her Women Fund and Jared got 8 millions for his slumlarding family as na investment via a Canadian investment fund but the cash is from the Kingdoms. Trump allegedly got a money laundromat for his campaign set up by George Nader, (another of Trump’s pedophile friends) by orders of the Saudi Family:
https://spectator.us/whistleblower-andy-khawaja-micropayments/
” Khawaja claims the Saudis and the Emiratis illegally paid tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to the Trump campaign in 2016. He says that to keep it secret, they disguised the money as small donations from Americans, using stolen identities and ‘virtual credit cards’ or gift cards — donations of less than $200 do not have to be reported to the Federal Election Commission and made public. He claims the Saudis and the Emiratis were able to make thousands of such small donations at a time using the latest payment processing technology. Khawaja knows this, he says, because he sold the know-how to their middleman, George Nader, who will be the central character in this story.”
The problem is the same with the Greek part too. It was JC former mistress that got this ball rolling when he used Spanish police to intimidate her in Monaco and she filed complaint in EC since crime was not limited to Spain . The family hate Letizia because she was a straight shooter, divorced and likes to work..kiss of death for marrying into royalty.
I just love the way Letizia dresses. She is totally goals.
As for the shady father, why is this all being announced now? Odd timing in the midst of a world crisis.
or the perfect time to announce something you’d rather not have people looking too closely at.
On a completely superficial note, King Felipe is one handsome dude and is working that beard.
A few years ago when I was at LaGuardia for a layover I got into a conversation with one of workers there who said they got to meet him and said that photos really don’t do him justice. Turns out she dropped some and he stopped to help her pick it up and when she lifted her head up to thank him she was looking up at him and his royal protection officers.
Cool story. He is gorgeous and they are a beautiful couple
Felipe is def the sexiest and most handsome royal man. He also has the trashiest family (minus his wife and children). His parents, siblings and in-laws are just just awful.
His family is awful but not like the BRF with Andrew. Of course they’re all cousins anyway across Europe.
King Felipe of Spain and Prince Carl Philip of Sweden for the threesome…LOL!
Prince Carl Philip looks like Orlando Bloom’s more handsome brother. 😉
Carl Philip is a big game hunter. He sucks big time.
He always was the stupid one.
He’s a little older than me and I had such a crush on him as a teenager. ❤️
I vote for Crown Prince Haakon!!!
I’ve heard that from several people – that he is SOOOOO hot in person and VERY tall.
Spain get King Hotness and we in the UK get future future King of Constipation.
LOL
And we in the US get a bad-haired blobfish
I read that King Felipe is 6’6″ tall! Wowza! He really is the epitome of tall, dark and handsome.
It’s sucks that Carl Philip is a big game hunter, because really, talk about looking like Prince Charming . . .sheesh!
Indeed. Wow. Families, hey…
First, love the description of King Felipe – “husband of Letizia” lol.
What a mess with JC and Felipe. Its like the family is just determined to be as shady as possible and Felipe is doing what he can to stop it.
I wonder if the monarchy will continue after him.
@Becks1 – I am sure the Spanish monarchy will continue due the the two lovely daughters of Felipe & Letizia.
Really? As a Spaniard, the “husband of Letizia” bothers me. I am not a monarchy supporter by a long shot – but I am even less of a supporter of “non-aristocratic” drifters like her marrying into the throne.
Let’s face it, if commoners are marrying into the royal family, the entire institution loses the little (and it was very little) sense it made. The idea is that you are of a certain background and education that prepares you for a life-time job of service to your country through constitutional representation. Meaning, you’re only slightly better than useless politicians because you have been trained since you were born.
So, as far as I’m concerned, Letizia is not “my queen”. She’s someone just like me, and I shouldn’t have to bow down to her any more than she should have to bow down to me because my taxes are paying her salary.
Unpopular opinion, but I stand by it.
Shut it, troll
Thanks for posting this article! I was just telling my husband, last night, why Queen Letizia is one of my favorite royals and that I’m curious about the behind the scenes on finances in the Spanish family as well as with other royals.
The former Spanish King was broke when he took the throne and has used various shady means over the years to enrich himself. Felipe is the only good one in that whole family – his mother and sisters are also shady AF and they have treat Letizia very badly. I recall reading about how Queen Sofia kept several tiara’s that were specifically for the Queen so that she could give them to her daughters specifically Cristina, the favourite. Those tiara’s should have gone to Letizia.
Is Cristina the one whose ex-husband is in jail or the one whose ex-husband had the debilitating stroke?
The one who’s husband is in jail for defrauding a charity.
Letizia is just as shady as the other ones lol I don’t know If you’re from spain or not but If you’re you should be aware the kind of friends she has involved in corruption and that kind of things.
Yesterday while his speech was on air the whole country was at the balconies doing a “cacerolada” basically rejecting him, there are a lot of videos on twitter if you’re interested.
He’s never been clean and he’ll never be, no matter what he strips his father of, he’s king because a fascist dictator wanted him to be and that’s a disgunting thing. I’m sure he make millions of Saudi Arabia too.
“he’s king because a fascist dictator wanted him to be”
@MCV – Are you referring to Juan Carlos I or Felipe Vi?
Probably JC because Franco, the fascist dictator for decades, wanted him in.
At first, I thought King Felipe was Mel Gibson!
I wish we knew how much money old Andy the Pedo gets from the murderous Saudi. Mama Liz must know but she’ll never tell.
What could JC have done to warrant a $65M gift??
@ JRenee : Exactly. I am wondering what Spain or the Spanish royal family had to trade that would make the Saudi king handover $65 million. What in Spain is worth that much dirty money? Actual assets? Information the Saudis want to keep suppressed? Or a long term money laundering opportunity for “the Kingdom”? Sorry for the weird list but I watch a lot of crime procedurals. And although that amount of money is outside of my experience, I think it would only be paid for something VERY big.
Sigh.. His Father just creates fires that Felipe and Leti have to put out.
Parts of this started to break in the fall going back to his ex mistress Corinna (the one he was vacationing with when he broke his leg and the chain reaction of scandal started). She alleged harassment by secret services. Apparently it all led to a Swiss account she has which was paid from his offshore account. The money appears to link to the saudis as part of a kickback from the awarding of a high speed rail line in Saudi Arabia.
Wow. Renouncing relationships and money because it’s the right thing to do….. Taking a moral stand for altruistic reasons…
King Felipe should do a “Ted Talk” for the British Royals.
I’m in Barcelona, and every day at 8 pm people clap and cheer for the healthcare workers,
at 9 pm they hit pans and pots for the king to give all that money to the healthcare system