In a deeply personal revelation, Spain's former monarch, King Juan Carlos I, has broken a seven-decade silence to address the tragic accident in which he fatally shot his younger brother. The incident, which occurred in 1956 while the royal family was in exile, has long been a sombre footnote in Spanish history, but the ex-king had never before provided his own account.
A Royal Tragedy Revisited
The event took place in March 1956 in Portugal, where the Spanish royal family was living in exile. Juan Carlos, then 18, and his 14-year-old brother, Infante Alfonso, were handling a .22 calibre pistol. According to the official statement released at the time by the Spanish Embassy, Alfonso was cleaning the weapon when a single shot was fired, striking him in the forehead and killing him almost instantly.
However, in his newly published memoir, titled Reconciliation, the 87-year-old former sovereign presents a different version of events. He writes that the brothers were "having fun playing" with the pistol and were unaware a bullet was in the chamber. "A shot went off, the bullet ricocheted and struck my brother in the forehead. He died in my father's arms," Juan Carlos recounts. He adds, "Even today, it's difficult for me to talk about what happened, but I think about it every day."
A Complicated Legacy and a Strained Relationship
Juan Carlos ascended to the throne in 1975 following the death of dictator Francisco Franco and was initially hailed as a national hero for steering Spain's transition to democracy and facing down a military coup in 1981. Yet, his reputation deteriorated in later years due to a series of scandals involving alleged financial misconduct, extramarital affairs, and controversial elephant-hunting trips during an economic downturn.
He abdicated in 2014 in favour of his son, the current King Felipe VI, and later left Spain for a self-imposed exile in the United Arab Emirates. In his memoir, Juan Carlos states he aimed to correct years of "misinterpretations and false truths" about his life. However, the book appears to have exacerbated the existing rift with his son.
This tension was highlighted recently when Juan Carlos released a video asking the Spanish people to "support my son, King Felipe, in the difficult job that is unifying Spain." The current royal household responded with unusual public swiftness, with communications director Rosa Lerchundi stating they did "not understand the purpose of that video" and saw it as neither "necessary nor appropriate."
A Monarchy Seeking Renewal
King Felipe VI has worked diligently to distance the modern monarchy from the controversies of his father's reign. When investigations into Juan Carlos's finances emerged, Felipe renounced his personal inheritance from his father and stripped him of his royal stipend. Although probes in Spain and Switzerland were eventually dropped, the damage to the former king's standing was irreparable.
The Spanish Royal House now operates with a markedly different ethos under Felipe, emphasising public service and fiscal restraint. Its annual budget is reportedly less than a tenth of the public funding received by the British monarchy. Despite this deliberate distancing, Juan Carlos expresses paternal sorrow in his writing. "I understand that, as King, he must keep a certain distance from me," he wrote. "But I have suffered as a father. In those difficult moments, I felt the need for affection and family support."
