Juan Carlos I has been the notable absentee from the royal family's traditional holidays in Mallorca. The former king has preferred to spend his own summer among friends, far away from the Marivent palace.
Thus, Juan Carlos has swapped Mallorca for Galicia, Saint Tropez and Ireland. It was this last destination that was hiding the most unexpected secret.
Whilst, in the last days of July, the Royal Family was already having fun in Marivent, the king emeritus was in Clonmellon, an Irish town about 80 kilometres northwest of Dublin.
He'd been invited there by Allen de Jesús Sanginés-Krause, former director of Goldman Sachs in Spain, for the day they were reopening the church of St John the Baptist in Clonmellon. What we didn't know is that Juan Carlos had gone there accompanied by somebody very special: Marta Gayá, his old Mallorcan lover.
The lovers travelled there together months after their relationship burst into the public eye again, as the result of a recording that turned up, in which the former king confirmed the affair.
Marta Gayá. GTRES
According to the online magazine, Look, the former director of Goldman Sachs in Spain wanted to pay homage to Juan Carlos in front of those present at the reopening of the church. It's in the photos of this moment that Marta Gayá is seen clearly next to the former king. There she is, until she notices the presence of a camera and suddenly moves away to leave Juan Carlos alone.
Don Juan Carlos ‘vuelve’ con Marta Gayá https://t.co/Tn0eRfClfG pic.twitter.com/Z0c02cvtaZ
— Look (@CorazonLook) 9 of August 2017
The event's official photographer was not carrying the camera that took the image in question. In spite of them taking several photographs of Juan Carlos I, in none of them is he next to Marta Gayá. It's possible, says the publication which released the photos, that “someone close to Krause asked that Gayá not appear in any shot”.
El reencuentro del rey Juan Carlos y Marta Gayá en Irlanda https://t.co/zUw99rd0g7 pic.twitter.com/bApwP7dKG8
— Look (@CorazonLook) 9 of August 2017
The photos of Juan Carlos with the rich Mallorcan come after what has been described as Gayá's “most difficult” summer in Palma. After her name appeared so often in the media this year, it seems that she has preferred to swap social events in her native city for others abroad.
Regardless, the place changes, but not the companions, and Gayá has been spending her days with the same person as decades ago, Juan Carlos I.