Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano (pronounced [leˈtiθja oɾˈtiθ rokasoˈlano]; born 15 September 1972) is Queen of Spain as the wife of King Felipe VI.
Letizia was born in Oviedo, Asturias. She worked as a journalist for ABC and EFE before becoming a news anchor at CNN+ and Televisión Española. In 1998, she married writer Alonso Guerrero Pérez; they divorced the following year. In 2004, Letizia married Felipe, then Prince of Asturias as the son and heir apparent of King Juan Carlos I. The couple have two daughters, Leonor and Sofía. As Princess of Asturias, Letizia represented her father-in-law in Spain and abroad. On Juan Carlos's abdication in June 2014, Felipe became king, making Letizia queen consort.
As the consort of the ruling monarch, Letizia has no constitutional functions of her own and it is constitutionally prohibited for her to assume any, unless she assumes the role of regent. The Queen performs public commitments representing the Crown, often with her husband, but she is focused on being the patron, president or member of numerous charities and organizations, and she is the visible face of the Spanish international cooperation, often traveling around the world supervising and promoting it.
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Family
Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano was born on 15 September 1972 at Miñor Sanatorium in Oviedo, Asturias, the eldest daughter of Jesús José Ortiz Álvarez, a journalist, and his first wife, María de la Paloma Rocasolano Rodríguez, a chief registered nurse and hospital union representative with a bachelor's degree in art history. She has two younger sisters, Telma (born 1973) and Érika (1975–2007). Érika died by suicide via intentional drug overdose while Letizia was pregnant with her second child.
Ortiz's parents divorced in 1999 and her father remarried in Madrid on 18 March 2004 to fellow journalist Ana Togores.
Ortiz's paternal grandparents were José Luis Ortiz Velasco (1923–2005), a commercial employee at Olivetti, and María del Carmen "Menchu" Álvarez del Valle (1928–2021), a radio broadcaster in Asturias for over 40 years. Her maternal grandfather was Francisco Julio Rocasolano Camacho (1918–2015), a mechanic and cab driver in Madrid for over 20 years who was of French and Occitan origin. Her maternal grandmother, Enriqueta Rodríguez Figueredo (1919–2008), was a Filipina of Spanish descent.
Several studies have been conducted to try to determine the queen's family genealogy. British genealogists have provided evidence that through her mother's Rocasolano lineage, Ortiz descends from Astorg Roquesoulane, a 16th-century woman who died in 1564, and her coat of arms incorporates the arms of the Rocasolano family. A French genealogist found evidence that through her mother's Rocasolano lineage, Ortiz is a 9th cousin of French singer and actress Anny Flore. Other reports have suggested, and remain unproven, that on her paternal grandfather's side, she is a descendant of an untitled family descended from medieval nobility who served as constables of Castile.
Education and career
Ortiz attended La Gesta School in Oviedo, before her family moved to Rivas-Vaciamadrid near Madrid, where she attended the Ramiro de Maeztu High School. She completed a bachelor's degree in journalism, at the Complutense University of Madrid, as well as a master's degree in audiovisual journalism at the Institute for Studies in Audiovisual Journalism.
During her studies, Ortiz worked for the Asturian daily newspaper La Nueva España and later for the newspaper ABC and the national news agency EFE. After completing her master's degree, she travelled to Guadalajara, Mexico, where she worked at the newspaper Siglo 21 and began work toward a PhD. She did not, however, complete her doctoral thesis because she returned to Spain. After returning to Spain, she worked for the Spanish version of the economic channel Bloomberg before moving to the news network CNN+.
In 2000, Ortiz moved to TVE, where she started working for the news channel 24 Horas. In 2002, she anchored the weekly news report programme Informe Semanal and later the daily morning news programme Telediario Matinal on TVE 1. In August 2003, a few months before her engagement to Felipe, Prince of Asturias, Ortiz was promoted to anchor of the TVE daily evening news programme Telediario 2, the most viewed newscast in Spain.
In 2000, she reported from Washington, D.C., on the presidential elections. In September 2001, she broadcast live from Ground Zero following the 9/11 attacks in New York and in 2003, she filed reports from Iraq following the war. In 2002 she sent several reports from Galicia in northern Spain following the ecological disaster when the oil tanker Prestige sank.
Marriages and children
First marriage
In the late 1980s, Letizia met Alonso Guerrero Pérez (b. 1962), a school teacher – 10 years older than her – who taught Spanish language and literature at the Ramiro de Maeztu Institute of Madrid, where she studied. After a 10-year courtship, on 7 August 1998 the couple married in a civil ceremony at the City Council of Almendralejo (Badajoz), municipality of origin of Guerrero. Letizia was 26 years old and Alonso 36. Ninety guests attended the ceremony. The marriage ended by divorce in 1999. After the divorce, Letizia moved to a small apartment located in the Madrid district of Vicálvaro. She later gave the apartment to her sister Erika; she lived there until her death in 2007.
Second marriage and children
On 1 November 2003, to the surprise of many, the Royal Household announced Ortiz's engagement to Prince Felipe. Following the announcement, she moved to live in a wing of the Zarzuela Palace until the day of her wedding. The Prince of Asturias had proposed to her with a 16-baguette diamond engagement ring with a white gold trim. She marked the occasion by giving him white gold and sapphire cufflinks, and a classic book.
The wedding took place on 22 May 2004 in the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid. It was the first royal wedding in this cathedral. It had been nearly a century since the capital celebrated a royal wedding, as the prince's parents married in Athens and his sisters, Infanta Elena and Infanta Cristina, married in Seville and Barcelona, respectively. Letizia's bridal gown was designed by Spanish fashion designer Manuel Pertegaz, her bridal shoes by Pura Lopez; and the veil, a gift from Felipe to his bride, was made of off-white silk tulle and hand-embroidered with detailing. As Letizia's previous marriage involved only a civil ceremony, the Catholic Church does not consider it canonically valid and therefore did not require an annulment to proceed with a Catholic marriage to Felipe.
Letizia and Felipe have two daughters: Leonor, Princess of Asturias, born on 31 October 2005, and Infanta Sofía, born on 29 April 2007. They were born in the Ruber International Hospital in Madrid.
Princess of Asturias
After becoming Princess of Asturias, Letizia automatically joined the royal family and moved her residence to the Prince's Pavilion (Spanish: Pabellón del Principe), Felipe's private residence, near to the Zarzuela Palace (the private and work residence of the royal family).
Although Letizia attended some specific events of the royal family before the wedding (such as the state funeral for the 2004 Madrid train bombings victims or the wedding of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, and Mary Donaldson), she immediately joined in the duties of her husband representing her father-in-law. Five days after her wedding, Letizia traveled with Queen Sofia, Prince Felipe and Infanta Cristina to the wedding of Jordan's Crown Prince Hamzah bin Hussein and Princess Noor bint Asem, which took place at the Zahran Palace. That same year, Letizia accompanied her husband on several national activities but also in international trips such us the official visits to México in July, Hungary in September, the United States in October, and Serbia in December, as well as receiving the president of the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus, and his wife, Livia Klausová, in Madrid.
In 2005, Letizia accompanied her husband to Brazil and Uruguay, both in February. They also travelled to Stockholm (Sweden) in April, to inaugurate a new office of the Cervantes Institute, and to Japan in June, where they met the Japanese Imperial Family and to visit the Expo 2005. Following the birth of Infanta Leonor at the end of 2005, the princess's agenda was reduced, although during the following year, in addition to her national commitments, she accompanied her husband on official trips to Portugal and China. The second pregnancy, this time of Infanta Sofía, also prevented her from attending some activities but, in October 2006, the Royal Household announced that the Princess of Asturias would have her own official agenda, which would be compatible with that of her husband. Her first solo act as princess was the inauguration of a public school in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid) on 9 October 2006. Since then, Letizia performed regular audiences and visits focused on social issues such as children's rights, rare diseases, culture, and education. In this sense, in September 2010, the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) appointed her as honorary president of the Association and its scientific foundation.
For all this, in late 2007 her solo agenda started to grow in the number of events she performed by herself and Felipe's and Letizia's agendas became more distinct and separate, and José Manuel de Zuleta, 14th Duke of Abrantes, joined the Prince of Asturias's Secretariat as private secretary to the Princess.
Queen of Spain
On 19 June 2014, Letizia became Queen of Spain with her husband's accession as Felipe VI; as such, she holds the style of Majesty. She is the first Spanish-born queen consort since Mercedes of Orléans, the first wife of Alfonso XII, in 1878. She is also the first Spanish queen to have been born as a commoner. The queen consort was present when King Juan Carlos I gave his son, King Felipe VI, the sash of captain general of the Armed Forces (symbolizing the transfer of royal and military power), as well as when Felipe swore before the Cortes Generales to fulfill his duties, protect and defend the Constitution as well as respecting the rights of the citizens and the Spanish regions.
Queen Letizia undertook her first solo engagement as queen on 23 June 2014 at the inauguration of the El Greco and modern painting exhibition at the Prado Museum in Madrid. On 25 June 2014, the King ratified the Duke of Abrantes as her private secretary. In their first overseas trip as king and queen, Felipe and Letizia met Pope Francis on 30 June 2014, in the Apostolic Palace. They later met with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, accompanied by Mgsr. Antoine Camilleri, under-secretary for Relations with States. The visit followed one by King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia on 28 April.
In September 2014, Letizia chaired the Royal Board on Disability, a government agency protected by the Crown whose president is the consort of the reigning monarch. On 25 October 2014, she attended the delivery ceremony of the Prince of Asturias Awards, the last with this name. From 2015 onwards, they were renamed "Princess of Asturias Awards" with Leonor, Princess of Asturias as their president. On 27 October 2014, she travelled to Vienna, Austria to inaugurate an exhibition about Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, which marked her first international solo visit. There, she met the Austrian president Heinz Fischer and his wife, Margit Fischer. It was not her last solo foreign visit that year, visiting Portugal in November for the Closing Ceremony of the 2nd Ibero-American Meeting on Rare Diseases and Italy to attend the Second International Conference on Nutrition, organized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), where she delivered the main speech. In her speech, she praised the role of women in the fight against hunger, described as "unacceptable" that more than 850 million people in the world suffer from hunger and demanded that the food industry balance its "commercial interests" with its "responsibility" to eradicate obesity. In December 2014, she chaired the general meeting of the Spanish Association Against Cancer, an association that she has chaired since 2010 and which she continues to do as queen.
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
Upon marrying Felipe, Letizia was styled "Her Royal Highness The Princess of Asturias", as consort of the Prince of Asturias, heir to the Spanish Crown. Likewise, Letizia had the right to use the other titles that belonged to Felipe as heir (these were those of Princess of Girona, Princess of Viana, Duchess of Montblanc, Countess of Cervera, and Lady of Balaguer).
After the accession of Felipe to the Spanish throne, Letizia became queen consort and was styled as "Her Majesty The Queen". In private conversations, the correct etiquette is to address her initially as "Your Majesty" (Majestad) and thereafter as "Madam" (Señora), but never as "You" (Tú or Usted).
Honours
On 21 May 2004, the day before her marriage to Felipe, Letizia was appointed a Dame Grand Cross of the Royal and Distinguished Order of Charles III. Since then, Letizia has received different appointments and decorations by foreign states and other Spanish honours.
Arms
The coat of arms of Queen Letizia was adopted in 2014, based on the design created for her by the Asturian Academy of Heraldry and Genealogy (Academia Asturiana de Heráldica y Genealogía) in May 2004 and approved by Vicente de Cadenas y Vicent, Cronista Rey de Armas; this was used by her as Princess of Asturias. The revision of 2014 was confirmed by Don Alfonso Ceballos-Escalera y Gil, Chronicler of Arms for Castile and León.
The Queen's coat of arms has no official status, as in Spain only those of the King, former King Juan Carlos, and of the Princess of Asturias are so recognized by Royal Decree.