Luis Fernando Romo

Updated Monday,15January2024 - 21:37

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Regardless of her social rank, Margrethe II of Denmark always made her cloak a robe. During the 52 years he was on the throne, he proved that he was an independent being who did not renounce his vices and passions. As queen she never betrayed her image, above all, because of the respect and devotion she felt for her father, King Frederick IX of Denmark, whom she decided to honor by abdicating on the same day he did so in 1972. But as a woman, far from pageantry, the image she continues to convey is the same as that of any commoner.

One of his favorite addictions was smoking. At just 17 years old, he lit his first cigarette and, until he had back surgery in February 2023, he did not stop. He didn't cut himself in public. As he wrote in a memoir in 1990, "My father and mother had smoked all my childhood and one day they asked me if I wanted a cigarette." His first puff dates back to 1957.

He started by holding English Virginia skinny jeans between his fingers and ended with Karelia's unfiltered ones. Nicknamed 'the queen of the ashtray', Margrethe II always boasted of being a chain-smoker, happy, who ignored her family's advice. For decades she was often photographed indulging in her favourite habit, but shortly before Denmark's ban on indoor smoking came into force in 2007 she decided she would never do so in public again. His second cousin, King Harald V of Norway (86), is also addicted to nicotine.

In the wake of last year's back surgery, she began to realize that she had to take care of herself. As she had spent more than six decades of her life addicted to cigarettes, she decided to gradually put aside this habit so that the recovery would be satisfactory. In an interview with the newspaper Weekendavisen at the time, he said that "the wonderful thing about the Karelia family is that they make everyone else taste like nothing" and with regard to the English Virginia, he said that after the death of his father "I realized that they were stronger than good".

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He has also differentiated himself from the rest of his contemporaries crowned by his artistic hobbies. She is still an atypical woman. From 1969 she gave free rein to her imagination as a painter of watercolours with which she has even participated in exhibitions. As an admirer of Tolkien, as Crown Princess she sent the British author under the pseudonym Ingahild Grathmer a series of drawings to illustrate certain adventures. He was enchanted by the talent of this 'unknown' woman and gave his approval for them to be published in the Danish edition of 1977.

Restless by nature, the monarch continued to be linked to the arts with the creation of costumes and sets in plays and film adaptations, such as those made of several Hans Christian Andersen stories such as The Snow Queen (2000) and The Wild Cinemas (2009). In fact, it is nominated twice for the Robert Awards – the Spanish equivalent would be the Goya Awards – in the categories of Best Costume Design and Best Set Design for the film Ehrengard. The Art of Seduction that Netflix released last year.

She is also a specialist in embroidery, has designed some of her country's Christmas stamps, has dared to adapt works by English, French, German and Swedish authors into Danish and loves archaeology.