‘I feel like my story is being stolen from me’

King Felipe of Spain’s father, Juan Carlos I, has a memoir coming out. The former King’s book, titled Reconciliación, is said to have been written “with an open heart and without concessions.” A press release for the upcoming memoir includes a quote from Juan Carlos, who left Spain in 2020 amid a financial scandal.

“My father always advised me not to write my memoirs. Kings don’t confess. Especially not publicly. Their secrets remain buried in the shadows of palaces. Why do I disobey him today? Why have I changed my mind? Because I feel like my story is being stolen from me,” the former King, 87, is quoted as saying (translated to English).

According to Editorial Planeta, the memoir “navigates between the two exiles that mark the beginning and end of his life—the forced one, in Estoril, and the voluntary one, in Abu Dhabi—and many of the most prominent figures in contemporary history pass through it. The monarch, in the twilight of his life and far from his family, prepares to make his final confession. ‘I have no right to cry,’ he says. But he has the right to seek his longed-for reconciliation with the country he loves and yearns for so much.”

The press release for the book notes, “This work, written in the first person and whose publication is in itself a historic event, indeed seeks to redress that situation. If His Majesty has decided to recount his story after almost forty years of reign, it is because exile in Abu Dhabi, some of the published opinion, and, why not, his own mistakes have ended up overshadowing his career and his fundamental contributions to the success of Spanish democracy.”

“Reconciliation recounts in detail the private side of a public life,” per Editorial Planeta. “It is a memoir rich in anecdotes that do not avoid the most significant episodes of our recent history, nor the joys or the hardships of his intimate and personal life. A journey that begins in a country immersed in a Cainite war, with a young Juan Carlos anchored to a destiny that is not his, but who, step by step, evading a thousand plots and earning the trust of all, ends up becoming the main actor in the radical transformation of Spain into the modern and prosperous state it is today.”

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After 39 years on the throne, Juan Carlos abdicated in favor of his son Felipe in June of 2014. When Queen Sofia’s husband announced his intention to abdicate, he said, “A new generation must be at the forefront… younger people with new energies.” The former monarch withdrew from public life in 2019. 

In 2020, Juan Carlos wrote in a letter to his son that he would be leaving the country. “Your Majesty, dear Felipe: With the same desire for service to Spain that inspired my reign and in the face of the public repercussion that certain past events in my private life are generating, I wish to express to you my utmost availability to contribute to facilitating the exercise of your functions, from the tranquility and tranquility that requires your high responsibility. My legacy, and my own dignity as a person, is what they demand of me,” Juan Carlos penned (translated to English).

“A year ago I expressed my will and desire to stop developing institutional activities. Now, guided by the conviction of providing the best service to the Spanish, their institutions and you as King, I am communicating my thoughtful decision to move, at this time, outside of Spain,” Queen Letizia’s father-in-law continued. “A decision I make with deep feeling, but with great serenity. I have been King of Spain for almost forty years and, during all of them, I have always wanted the best for Spain and for the Crown. With my loyalty forever. With the affection and affection of always, your father.”