Letizia at 50: From DJ's granddaughter to Queen in five decades

BORN under the sign of Virgo in Asturias' largest city, Oviedo – the same one as Formula 1 legend Fernando Alonso – with a spelling mistake in her name, Spain's Queen Consort, a third-generation journalist, was more likely to be reading out headlines than making them until the end of 2003.

This was when the late-evening face of TVE news announced her engagement to Crown Prince Felipe – not just to the nation, but to her closest friends.

They had apparently all noticed Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano, then 31, was very loved-up, and asked who the lucky man was.

Her cryptic reply was, “don't worry, you'll find out soon enough.”

A decade after their hugely-televised wedding, the new Prince and Princess of Asturias would become King and Queen of Spain when Felipe VI's father, Juan Carlos I, abdicated.

Fashion icon with a radio DJ Grandma

Until this century, though, the granddaughter of Radio Asturias' DJ Menchú Álvarez del Valle and daughter of news reporter Jesús Ortiz was busy forging herself a career in the media, rather than the monarchy.

Celebrating the close of her first half-century of life today – Thursday, September 15 – Letizia is now a familiar face on every continent, and practically everything she is seen wearing is sold out within hours of her fastening her buttons.

Particularly where those garments come from H&M, Zara, Massimo Dutti, Mango and other affordable high-street chains, and whose pieces she is just as likely to dress in at official engagements as her other favourite designers, Felipe Varela and Carolina Herrera. 

Letizia has also put a certain style of shoe – open-toed strappy sandals with stiletto heels – on the map, which were dubbed years ago as letizios, and especially those made by the Alicante-province designer firm Magrit.

She was a keen ballerina as a child, and would go on to work in several countries with globally-recognised news broadcasters as a young adult.

At school, she was on the class register as 'Leticia', which is the correct spelling of her name, but the unusual and grammatically-suspect decision to put a 'z' before the final 'i' was apparently deliberate on the part of her mother, Paloma Rocasolano, and her father, as a way of distinguishing their eldest daughter.

Letizia's parents had her at a very young age – for Spain, at least, where children have typically always been born to mums and dads older than the European average – meaning her dad will be 73 on Christmas Eve and her mum turned 70 in April.

Longevity seems to run in the family, though: Her maternal granddad lived to see her become Queen and was 97 when he passed away in 2015; her maternal grandmother was 89 when she died in 2008, and although her dad's dad was just 82 – living until 2005 – Letizia was still a granddaughter at nearly 49. Menchú was 93 when Letizia lost her last year, and had always been a pioneer in herself: She was a regional radio reporter for over 40 years, at a time when women rarely worked, and almost never in leading professions.

'Outstanding' student, reporter in México and covering the 9/11 attacks

Letizia went to La Gesta primary school in Oviedo and then the Alfonso II high school – taking ballet classes three times a week – until she was 15, when the family moved to Rivas-Vaciamadrid, near the capital, for her dad's work.

After finishing sixth form at the Ramiro de Maetzu high school, she went on to study media at the prestigious Complutense University in Madrid, where, according to one of her classmates, she 'stood out'.

“Letizia was extrovert, intelligent, and always liked to be the centre of attention,” said the unnamed fellow student.

She had never considered any other career, and had already started work with ABC newspaper and EFE news agency when she was still at university, focusing mainly on international politics.

Between 1992 and 1993, aged between 19 and 21, Letizia carried out work experience at the Oviedo-based newspaper La Nueva España, writing the business and economy, TV and entertainment pages. 

Following her master's degree in audio-visual media, the future Queen Consort got a job at the newspaper Siglo 21 in Guadalajara, western México, where she worked whilst researching her PhD.

She did not finish her doctorate, but shortly before her 28th birthday, Letizia received the Mariano José de Larra Award from the Madrid Press Association for Best Journalist Under 30.

Letizia worked for the US-based channels CNN – her television début – and the private-sector PRISA Group, reading the morning news for two years, starting at 05.00.

Between 1997 and 1999 – the year when her parents divorced after 28 years of marriage – Letizia worked for Bloomberg TV, specialising in economy, markets and finance under supervision by EFE Television.

The new millennium would see her joining Spain's national television and radio broadcasting company, RTVE, firstly presenting the weekly summer bulletins and then the news programme Telediario on TVE, the country's answer to BBC One.

Her slot was watched daily by an average of four million by 2003, by which time Letizia was also presenting the morning Telediario news, focusing largely on issues relating to the common currency – introduced into Spain in 2002 – and volunteering as foreign correspondent.

It was Letizia who reported on the September 11 attacks in New York, the sinking of the Prestige, and the Iraq invasion.

Interviewing the Crown Prince on TV – her 'secret' future husband

Nobody knew that, by then, she was seeing Prince Felipe; in fact, she interviewed the heir to the throne on the news in 2003, without any viewers suspecting what was to come.

Letizia had been married before – to her former language and literature high school teacher Alonso Guerrero Pérez – following a civil ceremony a month before her 26th birthday, but their nuptials were short-lived. Although they had been a couple for about 10 years, their marriage barely lasted 12 months, and they divorced in 1999, the same year as Letizia's parents.

The entire nation found out on November 1, 2003 – a public holiday for All Saints' Day – about the Royal engagement, and five days later, the formal ceremony in which Felipe VI asked for her hand in marriage took place at the El Pardo Royal Palace, in the presence of both sets of parents.

The State wedding at Santa María la Real de la Almudena Cathedral in Madrid on May 22, 2004 was attended by 12 reigning monarchs and their families, and another 12 Royal households that were no longer reigning.

Joy and tragedy: Embracing motherhood and losing a sister

Clearly, members of the public were fully expecting the next step, which was the birth of an heir to the throne; Princess Leonor of Asturias was born on Hallowe'en 2005, the very day before her parents' second anniversary of announcing their engagement.

Spain's then president, socialist leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, swiftly changed the Constitution so that, if Leonor had a new baby brother, he would not leapfrog her as next in line to the monarchy.

But Leonor would only go on to have a little sister, on April 29, 2007 – Sofía was named after her paternal grandmother, as Letizia wanted to show her appreciation to her mother-in-law for her crucial support when she first joined the Royal family.

It was a bittersweet year for Letizia – her excitement at knowing she would soon be meeting her second child was destroyed when her youngest sister Érika, an interior and graphic designer for Globomedia, committed suicide on February 6, just two-and-a-half months before her 32nd birthday.

Letizia has one surviving sister, Telma, who will be 49 at the end of October.

'Infanta' or 'Princess'? The difference explained

In Spain, the spouse of a reigning monarch automatically carries the title of 'King' or 'Queen', so although Letizia's rôle is that of Royal Consort, she is known as 'Queen Letizia'.

Only a direct heir to the throne is known as a 'Prince' or 'Princess', and is given the default title of 'Prince of Asturias' or 'Princess of Asturias'.

Those who would be referred to as 'Prince' or 'Princess' elsewhere in the world but who are not immediately in line to reign are, in Spain, known as 'Infante' for men or 'Infanta' for women.

Whilst Juan Carlos I's father, youngest son of the deposed King Alfonso XIII, was known as the Infante Juan, Spain only has Infantas at the moment – Felipe VI's sisters, Cristina and Elena, and his younger daughter Sofía.

This explains why Queen Letizia's and King Felipe's daughters are known as Princess Leonor and the Infanta Sofía – the former, the eldest, is first in line to become Queen, but the youngest is not, unless Leonor abdicates and has not had children by then.

And finally...

From all of us at thinkSPAIN – Feliz cumpleaños, Su Majestad, y que cumplas muchos más.

Or, given that Queen Letizia – like her husband and both her daughters – is fluent in English, Happy birthday, Your Majesty, and may you celebrate many more of them.