Meet Juan Carlos I – the dashing King who rescued democracy and the Spanish throne but today lives in exile, beset by an ocean of complaints about  adultery and financial impropriety

Times have changed for Spain’s Juan Carlos, once the most glamorous king in Europe – and by some distance.

No longer the monarch, styling himself as Rey Emerito or King Emeritus instead, the 85-year-old lives not in Madrid’s Zarzuela Palace but in exile in the United Arab Emirates.

Effectively forced to abdicate in 2014, Juan Carlos finds himself surrounded by allegations of financial impropriety – although nothing has been proved against him – and still faces a multi-million pound lawsuit from a former mistress.

Such is the controversy surrounding the former king that when,  in October, his granddaughter Leonor, heir the the throne, reached her 18th birthday and swore fealty to the Spanish constitution, Juan Carlos was not invited to the public ceremony, only the family gathering afterwards.

Spool back to the mid-1970s, however, and his reputation could hardly have been more different. 

At the beginning of his reign, he had been key to Spain’s peaceful transition to democracy following the four-decade dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

He was born on this day in Rome in 1938 to Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, and Princess María de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

His Italian upbringing was due to his family’s exile in 1931 and the bloody Spanish Civil War, which led to Franco’s rise to power.

Groomed by the feared dictator to replace him, Juan Carlos’s childhood and adolescence was ‘appalling’, according to his British biographer Professor Paul Preston.

‘I think it explains a lot. The privations of his childhood and adolescence might well count for some of the avarice shall we say, the urge to collect money in one way or another,’ he told the podcast Corinna and the King last year.

Juan Carlos’ first encounter with scandal came at the age of 18 in 1956 after the accidental killing of his 14-year-old brother, Alfonso.

The shocking incident is said to have happened when Juan Carlos, home for Easter from his military school, was cleaning a revolver he had been given by Franco.

The shot hit Alfonso in the forehead and the teenager died instantly.

After being forced to swear he had not done it on purpose, Juan Carlos was sent back to his austere academy.  Don Juan never forgave his son, but he tirelessly tried to restore the Spanish throne on his behalf.

At Juan of Bourbon’s behest, Franco grew close to the young prince and became convinced that Juan Carlos should succeed him and maintain his hardline regime.

Having kept Juan Carlos close by in his final years, Franco hoped that he would maintain his ultraconservative regime after his death. When Franco nominated Juan Carlos as his successor in 1969, it came as a surprise to many.

His swearing of loyalty to Franco’s Movimiento Nacional on being chosen as the next ruler signified that he was prepared to continue with the status quo.

But when the dictator died in 1975, Juan Carlos ignored those who wanted an extension to autocratic rule and instead ushered in parliamentary democracy.

His position was further cemented when, in 1981, he saw off a coup d’etat attempt that saw disgruntled members of the Guardia Civil attempt to seize power.

Facing the apparent catch-22 of either fleeing Spain or staying and risking death, Juan Carlos made a public television broadcast while wearing his uniform as the head of the armed forces.

Support for the coup melted away, whilst the king’s popularity skyrocketed.

Juan Carlos, who has three children – two daughters and a son – with his wife Queen Sofia, formerly Princess Sofia of Greece – then enjoyed years of adoration.

He had a good relationship with Queen Elizabeth and the British royal family, with one photograph showing him chatting to the late Princess Diana as a young Prince William sat between his legs.

His 1992 interview with broadcaster Selina Scott demonstrated his allure.

He was seen piloting his helicopter, racing around in his speed boat and riding his Harley Davidson motorbike in the garden of his palace.

For nearly three decades, the popular king was able to keep the more seedy details of his private life out of the spotlight.

Princess Diana denied suggestions that Juan Carlos ever made a pass at her, but did say that he could be a ‘little too attentive’.

On the subject of his illicit lovers, Spanish author Amadeo Martinez Ingles claimed he slept with 62 women in just one six-month stint, and allegedly bedded more than 2,000 female partners between 1976 and 1994.

One rumoured mistress, the 18-year-old actress Sandra Mozarowsky, died in mysterious circumstances in 1977 after falling from her balcony.

Public money worth more than £500,000 today was also allegedly paid to Spain’s 1971 Miss World candidate, Barbara Rey, so she would not spill the beans on their romance.

Another lover, the Spanish photographer Queca Campillo, told how, because they had nowhere to meet for their amorous encounters, she would go to the back entrance of the Zarzuela Palace – the royal residence – and meet ‘in a van they had’.

Meanwhile, the king remained married to Queen Sofia, though it has been reported that the two have not shared a bed since the late 1970s.

But it was his five-year relationship with the glamourous German-Danish aristocrat Corinna, coupled with his love of big-game hunting, that would ultimately lead to his downfall.

The pair became increasingly close after they began their affair in 2004.

The king showed the extent of his apparent love for her by giving her a ring that she was careful not to wear in public.

But the businesswoman broke off the romantic side of their relationship when she discovered that he had secretly been in another adulterous long-term tryst.

In 2012, she was persuaded to join him on a hunting trip to Botswana to celebrate her son’s birthday.

But when the king fell after an evening of drinking, she had to surrender the use of her private plane so the injured monarch could be secretly flown back to Spain.

An official plane was off the cards because the all-expenses trip had been paid for by a Syrian businessman and kept secret from the government.

The subsequent news of the luxury getaway, and the emergence of a photo of Juan Carlos posing with a dead elephant he had killed during an earlier trip, triggered a worldwide media frenzy, with Corinna now firmly in the spotlight.

The Spanish people were furious that their king had embarked on a lavish jaunt costing around £35,000 when the country was going through a terrible recession and youth unemployment stood at 50 per cent.

Juan Carlos issued a grovelling public apology for his Botswana trip and gave up his £20million yacht, as well as taking a pay cut.

But that did not stop the collapse of the decades-long agreement with the Spanish media to ignore his salacious private life, and so Juan Carlos’s reputation continued to nosedive.

In the months before his abdication, speculation about his future was rife as both of his hips had to be replaced and he needed the help of a cane during appearances.

Further ignominy hit the Spanish royal family in 2013 when Juan Carlos’s daughter Cristina was investigated for corruption alongside her husband.

After a probe lasting more than three years, Cristina – who became the first Spanish royal to appear in court – was acquitted, although her husband was jailed and she was stripped of her title by her brother.

 On June 18, 2014, Juan Carlos formally abdicated. He told his subjects: ‘I have decided to end my reign and abdicate the crown of Spain.

‘A new generation is quite rightly demanding to take the lead role.’

On the way out, he also took a swipe at the then Prince Charles, saying: ‘We do not want my son to wither waiting like Prince Charles.’

In August 2020, after six years out of the spotlight, he opted to leave Spain, saying he did not want his personal affairs to undermine his son King Felipe VI’s reign.

Earlier that year, his son had stripped him of an annual allowance of nearly 200,000 euros as details of his financial dealings emerged.

And Spain’s Supreme Court had launched an investigation just two months before his departure into his alleged involvement in a high-speed rail contract in Saudi Arabia.

The late Saudi King Abdullah allegedly deposited £77million (85million euros) into a Swiss bank account that Juan Carlos was said to have access to.

However, the case was ultimately dropped.

Corinna’s legal action against Juan Carlos rests on her claim that, following their break-up,  the former monarch harassed her and demanded he have have access to £56m that he had transferred into her bank account in 2012.

Her lawyers point out that it was an unconditional gift, fully documented as such and that Juan Carlos had no claim upon it.

The aristocrat, 59, is seeking damages and an injunction, claiming he caused her ‘great mental pain’ because of ‘a continuous and on-going campaign of harassment’.

She is also selling her £15million stately home in Shropshire after telling friends she fears for her safety.

The case is expected to be heard at a trial later this year.

Last September Juan Carlos attended the Queen’s funeral at Westminster Abbey, reportedly in defiance of the wishes of the Spanish government and his son.