Honestly, I didn’t know much about Spain’s queen before royal stuff, so I grabbed my laptop last Tuesday night. First thing I did was search “Letizia Ortiz young” because I remembered her maiden name popped up somewhere. Scrolled through tons of old Spanish tabloid photos from the 90s – seriously, that girl always had cheekbones that could cut glass.
Digging into her journalism days
Kept clicking around and stumbled on her news reporting clips. Found grainy footage from when she worked at ABC newspaper around ’93, then later at CNN+ Spain. Watched this one segment where she’s reporting live during 9/11 attacks, microphone shaking in her hand near Ground Zero – gave me chills. This woman wasn’t just reading teleprompters.
Then came the big discovery: her TVE years. Spent hours finding clips:
- Her anchoring nightly news looking crazy professional in power suits
- That time she interviewed Spanish prime minister Aznar and grilled him on Iraq War
- Footage from 2002 when she won equivalent of Spain’s Emmy for journalism
The messy personal life factor
Almost quit when I hit the relationship rabbit hole. Accidentally found archived gossip pages talking about her first marriage to this literature teacher guy in ’98. Wedding photos showed up everywhere back then like cheap confetti. Then divorce papers got leaked in 2000 – tabloids had field day when she started dating Prince Felipe shortly after.
That’s when it clicked – her fame cocktail had three ingredients:
1. Killer journalism chops covering hardcore news
2. Being constantly on TV screens nationwide
3. Tabloids obsessing over her love life before royalty
Shut my laptop around 2am realizing something: we always see royals as just, well, royal. But this woman clawed her way to fame way before palaces and tiaras. Makes you respect her different, honestly.
