![]() ![]() “He, as the head of state, was the motor of change,” said William Chislett, an author and expert on Spain who interviewed Juan Carlos I in 1977. But when Franco died in 1975, Juan Carlos supported a transition to democracy instead, and he stood firm against an attempted military coup in 1981 that aimed to derail the process. The former king was groomed by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco to succeed him while the rest of his family lived in exile in Portugal. “In another setting, it could be an homage,” he added. “He is an icon of power,” sculptor Nicolás Miranda told The Associated Press, saying it was a comment on the impact of where an artwork is displayed. The metallic likeness of the ex-king portrayed him aiming a rifle at a separate statue of a bear with an apple tree, a traditional symbol of Madrid. This was echoed last month with the sudden appearance of a guerrilla statue of Juan Carlos in the Puerta del Sol, a central Madrid square. ![]() Juan Carlos’ relations with the Spanish public began to crack in 2012, when the former patron of the World Wide Fund for Nature injured himself on an elephant hunting trip in Botswana while his subjects back home were living through a full-blown economic crisis. King Charles III takes day off after busy coronation weekendĬharles’ own family drama also threatens to overshadow the event, with his younger son’s tell-all autobiography crowning decades of tabloid divulgences about his siblings and the difficulties of his own two marriages. Gone are the days of a pliant press covering up his long history of affairs and indiscretions, as some even ask whether it is time for Spain’s third republic of the past 150 years. The former king has become an object of open hostility in some quarters of Spanish society following his recent second visit home from exile in Abu Dhabi. “What he lives is sex, money and power, the three dimensions of all the problems of humankind,” said Álvaro de Cózar, an investigative journalist who wrote and directed “Ex-Rey” (Ex-King) a popular podcast that delved into the 85-year-old Juan Carlos’ troubled life. His story serves as a warning for any European royal who wants their achievements on the throne, rather than torrid gossip, to be their lasting legacy. The former Spanish head of state abdicated in disgrace in 2014. MADRID (AP) - A playboy past that was once brushed under the carpet, a popular son whose telegenic family threatens to eclipse his own star, and endless leaks about his private life: Spain’s Juan Carlos I can empathize with the lot of Britain’s Charles III.
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