• Exclusive The photos of King Juan Carlos' birthday: a cake with his banner, speeches, an unexpected guest...
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Don Juan Carlos surrounded by his daughters. The Emeritus, sword in hand, cutting a cake with his banner stamped in fondant. Felipe VI's father with Los del Río. ¡Hola! published this Wednesday an extensive report on the birthday of the former head of state. A party in Abu Dhabi that, although they insisted on saying that it was limited to being a celebration between friends, has ended up generating controversy because the details have transcended in an exclusive whose dissemination has been authorized by King Juan Carlos himself.

Felipe VI's father thus breaks the promise of discretion he made to his son after having an extensive time of conversation at the Zarzuela palace in May 2022. Then, and after Don Juan Carlos returned to Spain for the first time on a trip of mass bathing and great exposure, the Head of State explained to his father the damage that his publicity caused to the Crown and the need for containment.

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The Emeritus made some soul-searching and, since then, all his trips to Spain have been low-key. Since May 2022, there have been six more. Two of them to Madrid for family reunions. One on October 31, 2023 to celebrate Doña Leonor's coming of age and another on December 20 for Doña Elena's 60th birthday. On that last occasion, King Felipe and Queen Letizia conveyed an image of normality in relations, attending the birthday party and making it clear that they shared a family event with Don Juan Carlos.

It seemed that the party for his 86th birthday would keep the promise of discretion with which his appearances in Spain were normalized. Thus, since Lecturas exclusively published the celebration of this party, all the guests have attended to the press naturally, offering details of the party, which took place one day before the debut of the Princess of Asturias at the Military Easter.

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Five days after the celebration, and when the issue seemed to have finished grabbing headlines, it is Don Juan Carlos himself who authorizes the continuation of talking about it. ¡Hola! magazine publishes a photograph of the celebration on its cover. Inside, a ten-page report offers every detail of the party and poses of the Emeritus.

Felipe VI's father looks at the camera flanked by the Infantas Elena and Cristina and the four grandchildren who attended the party. Behind them, a Christmas tree and a Spanish flag. The guests were greeted in that impromptu hand-kissing in the house. Don Juan Carlos, with a pin of the national flag on his lapel, cut with a sword a cake on which the coat of arms of the Emeritus had been printed in fondant, giving or detracting solemnity to the symbol that represented the former Head of State for 38 years.

¡Hola! received the images as a gift from Don Juan Carlos, as reported by Vanitatis. And Zarzuela, as this media outlet has learned, had not been informed of this report. The Head of State does not comment on this publication. Don Juan Carlos has been a private citizen since 2019 when he decided to step away from institutional life. And since he left for Abu Dhabi on August 2, 2020, his ties to Zarzuela at work do not exist, even though he is part of the Royal Family.

However, on a personal level, his son, Felipe VI, wanted to make clear to him the damage that some of his moves could harm the Crown. Everything seemed more normalized, until Don Juan Carlos took center stage again. And it has done so at the expense of the image of the Heiress, which debuted at the Military Easter on January 6 and whose premiere has been put on the back burner by the image of Juan Carlos I, saber in hand, cutting a cake.

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