This week, what many had suspected for some time has been confirmed: Queen Letizia has decided to cut her ties with Pablo Urdangarin completely. The relationship between them was never smooth, but it now seems to have reached a breaking point, fueled by old family wounds and resentments that have lingered for years.
Although the grandson of the emeritus king has always been discreet, this time he has marked a turning point in his dealings with the queen. The tension is no longer hidden and opens a new chapter in a story that has been brewing for more than a decade. What has happened for Pablo to distance himself so radically from his aunt by marriage?
Queen Letizia says enough to the Urdangarin family
The relationship between Letizia and the Urdangarin family began cordially. During the first years of her marriage to King Felipe, the queen got along well with Infanta Cristina, to the point that they shared trips and confidences. That closeness, however, was unexpectedly broken in 2005.
Infanta Cristina and Iñaki Urdangarin celebrated their daughter Irene's baptism in Madrid. In the past, it was customary for them to stay at the Palacio de la Zarzuela, however, Letizia, who was pregnant at the time, decided there would be no guests in her home. That refusal surprised everyone and created the first rift in her relationship with her sister-in-law.
Over time, the distance increased, as the outbreak of the Nóos case in 2011 sealed the break. Iñaki's indictment caused a media and judicial earthquake that shook the Royal Family. To protect the institution, Queen Letizia completely separated herself from Infanta Cristina, thus establishing a barrier that was never lifted again.
Since then, relations have been strictly formal, with neither frequent family gatherings nor gestures of complicity at public events. Letizia decided to prioritize the image of the crown over personal ties. That distancing from Cristina also affected her children, who grew up with hardly any contact with the queen.
Pablo Urdangarin breaks with Queen Letizia
That institutional distancing ended up affecting the personal relationship between Letizia and the children of Infanta Cristina. Of all of them, the one who has felt it the most has been Pablo Urdangarin, Cristina and Iñaki's second child and the most publicly visible in recent years.
Pablo grew up watching his mother's relationship with the queen change. As a child, he experienced that episode at Irene's baptism and, shortly after, the isolation his family suffered during his father's legal proceedings. That experience marked him and led him to develop a critical view of Letizia, whom he considers responsible for not reaching out.
The young athlete is respectful in public, but in private he has made it clear that he can't forgive the way the queen has treated his mother. For him, Cristina was relegated and excluded from the Royal Family by Letizia's decision, and that wound doesn't heal with time.
That perception is reinforced by rumors suggesting that Iñaki told his children that Letizia may have contributed to leaking the Nóos case. Pablo, influenced by those words, feels that his father's conviction and his mother's suffering are chapters in which the queen wasn't on their side.
For Pablo Urdangarin, his mother, Infanta Cristina, will always be the priority. As long as he feels that Queen Letizia didn't treat her with the respect she deserved, that bond will remain broken. A break that actually symbolizes the deep rift between two branches of the Royal Family that, despite the passage of time, remain irreconcilable.