Letizia’s ex-brother-in-law claims he had a romance with the royal

The Spanish Royal Family have been rocked by outlandish claims from Queen Letizia’s ex-brother-in-law that he had a relationship with the royal before he married her sister Telma – as he shared a never-before-seen image as ‘proof’ of their romance. Jaime Del Burgo, 53, who is currently based in the UK, has recently contributed to a tell-all book about the Spanish royal, where he makes the far-fetched claim they were still romantically involved after Letizia’s 2004 wedding to King Felipe.

The entrepreneur – who claims he was dating Letizia when she met King Felipe – shared an undated selfie the Queen, 51, took in a bathroom mirror during one of her pregnancies as ‘evidence’ of their relationship on X, formerly known as Twitter, last night. In the selfie, the royal can be seen wearing a black pashmina – which Jaime claims belonged to him – and he also typed out a message, supposedly sent to him by the Spanish Queen. It read: ‘Love. I wear your pashmina. It’s like feeling you by my side. It takes care of me. ‘It protects me. I count the hours until we see each other again. Love you. Get out of here. Yours,’

After sharing the image, other X users questioned the validity of Jaime’s claims – given there is no evidence that Letizia sent him the photo or accompanying message. The businessman has since deleted his X account. A spokesperson for the Spanish Royal Family told FEMAIL: ‘We have no comment to make about this.’ It comes just weeks after Jaime – who was married to Letizia’s sister Telma from 2012-2014 – made a series of shocking allegations about his relationship with the Queen in the new book ‘Letizia & I’ by journalist Jaime Peñafiel. Speaking to El Cierre Digitial, the author, 91, said Letizia was Jaime del Burgo’s ‘great love’ and the pair’s relationship turned into a ‘great friendship’ after she became romantically involved with King Felipe.

Local media reports that Jaime – who is the son of the former politician Jaime Ignacio del Burgo – was planning to propose to Letizia when she announced that she was dating the future King in the gardens of the Ritz hotel in Madrid. After their engagement was announced in 2003, Letizia – who had divorced her first husband in 1999 – asked Jaime to be a witness at their wedding. In the book, Letizia’s alleged ex-lover describes Felipe as a ‘kind-hearted man’ and even goes on to say that he had a ‘great friendship’ with the royal. He told the author: ‘I told him my problems and he told [me] his.’

However, Jaime claims he still had a romantic relationship with Letizia even after the wedding in 2004 and says he has kept ‘photographs, videos, mobile phones’ and text messages as evidence. In the book, Jaime claims that Letizia whispered that she loved him in 2010 when they were lying in a hammock by a pool at her home. The author – who joked that Letizia’s alleged ex-lover should have been his co-author – wrote: ‘Lying in the same hammock, under the pool porch, facing each other, Letizia told me “I love you” and I responded “I love you”.’ Following this, Jaime alleges they ‘took steps forward with the goal of being free’ – which involved seeking legal advice and looking at properties in the US. One of the most damaging claims Jaime reportedly makes is that Queen Letizia reportedly suggested they have a child together using a surrogate in Los Angeles.

However in August 2011, Jaime alleges Letizia abruptly ended their relationship when she called him and said: ‘We can’t continue seeing each other.’ The following year, he married Letizia’s younger sister Telma Oritz – who used to work in Barcelona’s City Council – and Jaime claims he was still close to Letizia and Felipe. Author Jaime Peñafiel wrote: ‘When [Jaime del Burgo] is going to marry Telma, it is Felipe who advises him on the marriage agreements and, over the years, they have maintained a great friendship.’ In 2012, the pair relocated to New York to start their married life – but Telma returned to Barcelona the same year before announcing their permanent separation in 2014. The couple’s first attempts at divorce had been squashed by the groom’s father Jaime Ignacio del Burgo, who told a court that his son and Telma repented and wanted to give their marriage another go.

Telma has since married Irish lawyer Gavin Bonnar and the couple welcomed their first child together in October 2021. Gavin shares two children with his first wife musician Sharon Corr. Meanwhile, Jaime remarried Swedish laywer Lucía Díaz Liljestrom. Letizia and Telma tragically lost their younger sister Erika in February 2007 when she passed away following a deliberate drug overdose. Queen Letizia’s younger sister was only 31 years old and left behind her six-year-old daughter Carla. At the time, the Spanish royal was six months pregnant with her second daughter – Princess Sofia. This afternoon, King Felipe and Queen Letizia put on a united front as they were pictured for the first time since Jaime’s bombshell claims at the Annual Meeting of the Cervantes Institute held at the Royal Palace of Aranjuez. Born on September 15, 1972, in Oviedo, northern Spain, Letizia grew up in a middle-class family and attended a public school.

While her mother, Maria Rodriguez, was a nurse, Letizia took after her father, Jesús José Ortiz Álvarez, and stepmother Ana Togores, who are both journalists, and studied communications at university in Madrid. She then got her Masters in broadcast journalism and after a stint at Asturian daily paper, La Nueva España, she went on to work for ABC, a popular national newspaper that enjoys the third largest circulation in Spain. Next came a stint at Spanish news agency EFE before a move to Guadalajara in Mexico saw her take on a role on local paper, Siglo 21. 

Back in Spain a year later, she worked for the Spanish version of Bloomberg, a news channel and agency specialising in economics, before moving to CNN+. Before she met Felipe of Spain, Letizia was married to high school literature teacher Alonso Guerrero Perez, who was nine years her senior. The couple wed in 1998 following a ten-year romance, with the pair meeting when the future Spanish queen was just 16. They tied the knot in a civil ceremony in the town of Almendralejo, Badajoz, but divorced the following year.

By the time she met her husband-to-be, Felipe, in 2002, Letizia was working for popular TV channel 24 Horas, where along with anchoring the popular Telediario 2 evening news bulletin she reported on a wide range of breaking news event. As a news anchor, she reported live from Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. She met Prince Felipe the following year – at the site of an oil spillage in Northern Spain. The year after first meeting Felipe, Letizia quit her job and a few days later their engagement was announced.

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