King Carlos and his ‘bags full of cash’

The former mistress of Juan ­Carlos has claimed Spain’s disgraced monarch presided over a ‘court of miracles’.

Former mistress of Juan Carlos, Corinna Larsen. Picture: AFP

The former mistress of Juan ­Carlos has claimed that Spain’s disgraced ex-king presided over a “court of miracles” in which he received “bags full of cash”.

In the second instalment of a podcast, Corinna Larsen, 57, known by her married name, Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, discussed corruption claims during Juan Carlos’s reign before he abdicated in 2014 and fled to Abu Dhabi amid scandal.

In Corinna and the King, produced by authors Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, Ms Larsen portrayed herself as a woman abused by a powerful man, and expressed the feeling that she was never just a mistress but a wife, even after learning he had had multiple lovers.

“There were things that to me were so unusual,” she said in the latest episode.

“He would call someone up who had a great chateau of Bordeaux wines and say, ‘I really love these wines, could you send me some?’ And 20 cases of this priceless wine would arrive.

“His wish was everyone’s command, and people were literally falling over backwards just to please him. (He’d) come back from trips and he’d be happy as a five-year-old. And there’d be bags full of cash, and you go, ‘Oh my God, what’s that?’, and it’s like, ‘Oh this is from my friend so and so, and this is from my friend so and so.’ It seemed like a very normal situation.

“If I asked questions, he’d say, ‘Ah, you’re so dramatic, you don’t understand how Spain works.’ Clearly I didn’t.”

Then king Juan Carlos, centre, his son Felipe, the current King of Spain, and his wife, Queen Letizia, attend the Spanish National day military parade in Madrid in 2012. Picture: AFP

The eight weekly episodes are likely to coincide with Juan Carlos’s appeal against a court ruling that as a member of the Spanish royal family he is not subject to litigation in Britain, where Ms Larsen is bringing a civil action claiming that he harassed and spied on her.

David Jimenez, a former editor-in-chief of the Spanish daily El Mundo, said much of the media knew about Juan Carlos’s affairs and financial dealings but chose not to report on them.

“Everybody knew that you could not touch the king,” he said.

“It was partly out of respect for what (he) had done, but also because he was linked to big corporations and could use that ­influence to damage your company. It was an open secret, we just didn’t write about it.”

In September HBO released a documentary about the former monarch titled Saving the King, which detailed how the media, royal household and successive governments covered up his many affairs and irregular business dealings.

The Times