Woman who claims to be former king’s lovechild tells all

INGRID SARTIAU, who claims to be former King Juan Carlos of Spain’s illegitimate daughter, has shared all with the Daily Mail online newspaper.

Although Spanish courts rejected paternity claims against King Juan Carlos by Ingrid Sartiau and Alberto Sola in 2012, ruling that the monarch could not be held accountable under the Spanish constitution, legislation has been introduced since his abdication last year which allows legal action through the Supreme Court only.

The Supreme Court has now agreed to hear Sartiau’s claim, which she says is all about recognition rather than fortune.

“All I want is to meet and have a relationship with my father. I would prefer to be recognised by him than all the money in the world,” Sartiau said.

The 47-year-old woman explained that her mother Liliane kept her father’s identity from her for many years, and it was only in 2011 that she spilled the beans.

Sartiau told the Daily Mail that her mother fell madly in love with teenaged prince Juan Carlos in 1956 while working as a governess, and went to Marbella 10 years later in the hope of finding her heart-throb.

In November 2012 Liliane gave a statement before a notary in Ghent, declaring that the couple met up in a Marbella nightclub and spent three passionate nights together before she realised a porter had recognised the prince and fled for Belgium.

Liliane, then 79, said: “From those intimate encounters until the birth of my daughter I never had any other sexual relations and I can guarantee 100 per cent that Ingrid is the daughter of Juan Carlos I. I confirm that the sexual relations with Juan Carlos were without contraception.”

Once at home in Belgium she said she had confided in two nurses, who advised her to have an abortion (which was illegal at the time) because authoritarian, ultraconservative General Franco, who was ruling Spain as regent, could try to hunt the child down.

Ingrid said that her mother, now 82, had never loved anyone else and was still in love with Juan Carlos to this day. She stated she had never doubted her mother’s story and that she had no need of the royal family’s money.

“People say I am just saying this story for the sensation, or because I want money, but I have only lost from this experience so far. My marriage broke under the pressure, my children have been under pressure, my health has suffered.”