British media
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1415555,00.html
Times Online
December 26, 2004
Spanish heels stir royal baby gossip
Nigel Bowden, Malaga
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WHEN Spain’s Prince Felipe married the almond-eyed former news reader Letizia Ortiz last May, the heir to the throne must have thought he had at last rid himself of the media circus that dogged his free-wheeling bachelor days.
Yet just seven months into the marriage Felipe, 36, and Letizia — now the Princess of Asturias — again find their most intimate details to be the subject of intense speculation.
Spain is waiting with bated breath for a royal baby, and while Felipe’s siblings have been producing progeny in the plentiful proportions of Spanish tradition — the Infanta Cristina has just announced she is pregnant with her fourth child — Felipe and Letizia, 32, are yet to get off the mark.
A host of reasons has been offered for the delay, from rumours of fertility treatment to more outlandish theories — including the princess’s trademark stilettos.
A new book, Los Tacones de Letizia (Letizia’s High Heels), is climbing the Spanish bestseller lists. In it Jaime Penafiel, its author and a respected royal commentator, claims that the heels could be at the root of the Spanish succession problem.
So as not to look dwarfed by her 6ft 5in husband, Letizia, who is more than a foot shorter, nearly always wears heels. Cobblers to the rich and famous have told Penafiel that Letizia’s designer stilettos, some of them more than 4in, are about as high as safety will allow without the wearer toppling over. And the anatomical stress is feared to be harming Letizia’s reproductive capability.
Penafiel’s book claims the princess has learnt to stand with her legs slightly apart, helping spread her weight to counter any ill effects. “The prince and princess are both devout Catholics and I have it on good authority that they are trying for a child,” he claimed last week. “This delay is most unusual.”
The princess is also rumoured to have had fertility tests at the private Dexeus clinic in Barcelona and at the Jimenez Diaz Foundation in Madrid. There is even talk of the need to reverse an operation on her fallopian tubes, done during her postgraduate student days in Mexico.
The royal palace has denied all the allegations, but a number of web pages devoted to the secrets of the couple’s boudoir have sprouted on the internet. El Mundo, a Spanish daily, carries jokey references to their inability to produce an heir in a cartoon strip entitled Alicia, the Governess of Letizia.
It is all grist to the mill for the prince, whose previous girlfriends caused consternation in royal circles. He had enjoyed dalliances, among others, with Eva Sannum, a Norwegian underwear model, and Isabel Sartorius, an art expert whose playboy father’s party trick was to down a shot of vodka and then eat the glass.
Even Ortiz, a divorcée with a similarly raunchy past, was initially controversial. But the Catholic church overlooked her first marriage on the grounds that it took place in a register office, and the Spanish quickly took to her, breathing sighs of relief as the popular prince at last settled down.
Since their wedding, Letizia has accompanied Felipe on official visits to America, Mexico, a number of South American countries, Jordan and the Czech Republic. Apart from learning the ins and outs of royal etiquette, she has dutifully learnt to ski and sail, the two favourite pastimes of the Spanish royals.
Although Britain’s two most noted mergers with the Spanish royal family were hardly successful — in 18 years of marriage Henry VIII only had one daughter with Catherine of Aragon, and his daughter Mary failed to produce any children with Prince Philip of Spain — the House of Bourbon has been fecund, with only Fernando VII failing to produce a male heir.
Letizia does not fight shy of the subject, and when asked about pregnancy during a public engagement in Barcelona she replied: “Most definitely not! But when I am, you can have the story, exclusive.”
The palace has denied any connection between high heels and the absence of pram wheels. “The Princess of Asturias wears high heels because they suit her,” a spokesman said. “I can’t comment on any pregnancy or lack thereof.”
Additional reporting: Ed Owen, Madrid