Queen Letizia's tense exchange with mom-in-law Queen Sofia caught on camera
When royal families all around the world make public appearances they ensure to look and act their best. But for Spain's royalty, the family discord was too transparent to shield. On Tuesday a footage of an encounterbetween Queen Sofía and her daughter-in-law, Queen Letizia, on Easter Sunday emerged and ever since, it has made headlines all over.
In Spain itself, the local papers have called the obvious disharmony after a mass at Palma Cathedral in Mallorca, to be “tense” and “uncomfortable.” It is not known what words were exchanged between Sofia and Letzia, but the footage shows the 79-year-old Queen Sofía putting her arms around her granddaughters, Princesses Leonor and Sofía, and gathering them close for an apparent photo op.
At this moment, the 45-year-old Queen Letizia, the girls’ mother and the wife of King Felipe VI, moves in front of them, apparently trying to block the photograph. Queen Sofía reacts by shuffling back and forth and clutching the girls ever more tightly. We can see Letizia reaching out to brush the hair of Princess Leonor, who, at the same time, pushes Queen Sofía’s arm away. A few words seem to be exchanged, and Leonor again removes her grandmother’s hand from her shoulder but also pulls it back then pushes it away again.
The 50-year-old King Felipe then steps in and in an effort to calm things down, he looks at his wife and holds her arms, and things go back to being normal, or royal, again.
But this short and sudden act of the royal family has been etched in people's mind and is a topic of growing discussion. Crown Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece, the wife of Queen Sofía’s nephew Crown Prince Pavlos, weighed in on Twitter: “No grandmother deserves that type of treatment!”
It has been reported that Queen Letizia was trying to protect daughters from getting publicly photographed from "intrusive media."
