The obituary of the British newspaper The Independent wrote: "The Duchess of Albert, a gorgeous aristocrat, is the most distinguished person in the world. She is an enemy of Spain because she married a young man. " Last week, the 88-year-old lady passed away. Spain's flag flew at half-mast in mourning, and many national media wrote her obituary. She is Kaya Tana, Duchess of Albert, Spain. During her decades of career, she frequently made headlines in the media, generally for two reasons: wealth and willfulness.
More honorable than the Queen of England?
If Queen Elizabeth II and Duchess Albert meet at the same door, who will make way? "I'm afraid it's the queen." The British media think so, and the Spanish media have seriously discussed whether the Queen needs to curtsy to Duchess Albert.
Why is there such a statement? Because Duchess Albert holds the record of the highest title in the world, she is even included in the Guinness Book of World Records: 14 Grand Duke of Spain (the highest title of Spanish nobility), 5 Duke of Bo, 18 Marquis, 18 Earl, 1 Viscount, a total of *.
Among them, her most important title is Duchess Albert, which has been hereditary for more than 500 years. At the age of 29, Kayatana officially inherited the title of Duke and became the head of the Albert family, and inherited many privileges, such as not kneeling in front of the Pope and riding into the sacred Seville Cathedral.
Kayatana is also a descendant of James II, England, and is related to Churchill and Princess Diana. Queen Kayata Navi is less than a month old. Kayatana spent some time in London with the then ambassador's father when she was a child. The Queen's sister Princess Margaret often plays together, and Kayatana also shares toys with Elizabeth II.
After nearly half a century, the Duke and the Queen had little contact until 1988, when the Queen of England hosted a banquet for Kayatana. According to the Spanish newspaper el Pais, the Duchess curtseyed to the Queen at that time, which seemed to mean that the Duchess Albert was "a little lower" than the Queen of England.
"I don't like talking about money"
Kayatana is a household name in Spain and is also considered as the richest woman in Spain. Her properties are all over Spain and small islands, and there are houses in major cities in Spain. In any case, from south to north, she never needs to spend the night on land that doesn't belong to her. She once told people that no matter which major city she traveled to in Spain, she could stay at her own home.
Besides real estate, she also has many priceless works of art, including more than 50,000 collectibles and more than 65,438+08,000 books, many of which are rare, such as the first edition of Don Quixote and Columbus's first hand-drawn map of the American continent. Forbes estimated her wealth at about 2.8 billion euros. However, these collections cannot be valued and cannot be sold without the permission of the Spanish Ministry of Culture.
As for her attitude towards money, she wrote in her autobiography: "I don't like talking about money. Many people confuse having assets with having cash, and we have never had much cash. "
"willful" three marriages
In the obituary of Kayatana's death, she was called "a rebel among nobles" and "an unconventional aristocrat", while * * * described it as "a gossip pillar in Europe and America for decades".
Kayatana never lets wealth be the bondage of her life. She always follows her own heart.
When she was young, she was so beautiful that Picasso asked her to be a "muse", but Kayatana refused, thinking that the modeling was "monotonous"; In recent years, Tana and Kaya are keen on plastic surgery, and their faces are full of traces of plastic surgery; At the age of 87, she is still sunbathing on the beach in a bikini and doesn't care that her wrinkled skin and flabby figure appear in front of the media.
However, what pushed her to the top of the "aristocratic rebel" was her much-watched love history.
1947, 2 1 year-old Kayatana married for the first time, and her husband Pedro was also a Spanish aristocrat. The wedding was described by * * * as the most expensive wedding in the world at that time, and the value of jewelry she brought was more than 1 10,000 pounds, even more luxurious than the wedding of Elizabeth II 1 month later. They have lived for nearly thirty years and have six children. Pedro died in 1972.
Kayatana's second marriage shocked Spain: 1978, she married Salat, a priest who used to be a confessor, and later quit her job and returned to the secular world. Because of the latter's improper position, Kayatana encountered many criticisms. However, Salat got along well with Kayatana's children, and the latter gradually accepted him. 200 1 year, Salat died.
10 years later, at the age of 85, she married Alfonso Dilts, a Spanish civil servant who was 24 years younger than herself. At the wedding, Kayatana took off her shoes and danced flamenco barefoot.
Dispel hundreds of millions of yuan for love
The wedding with Alfonso is the result of her three-year struggle with the whole world.
Kayatana and her six children have been in a war since 2008. She wanted to marry Alfonso, but the children refused to agree.
Alfonso works for the Spanish Ministry of Social Security, but he doesn't have nothing. He owns his own public relations company. Of course, his net worth is completely different from Kayatana's. In the eyes of children, Alfonso chose to marry Kayatana because she took a fancy to her money.
But Kayatana said that she and Alfonso are true love. "He fell in love with me at first sight, but I had a husband at that time, and he was in love at that time." She told Spanish television.
They haven't been in touch for many years, but they met again in a cinema in 2008, and the single two decided to be together. The disparity in their status, age and wealth led their children to launch a "movement" against their mother's remarriage.
In order to prevent their mother from remarrying, the children even invited the king of Spain as a lobbyist. King Juan Carlos asked Kaya Tana to "think twice" about remarriage through various channels.
Kayatana said that all her children have high-profile marriages and divorces, at least she has never been divorced. A reporter friend of hers also felt wronged for her. "In Spain, if a rich man marries a very young girl, it's nothing."
Under the pressure of the royal family, the Albert family issued a statement through the official Spanish media, saying that Duke Albert and Alfonso "have been friends for many years and have no intention of getting married".
Then Kayatana was silent for a while, but she was always maverick and was by no means a quitter. Facing the children's worries, Alfonso finally signed an agreement, promising to give up the ownership and inheritance of all the property in Tana, Ka Ya, and not to inherit her peerage.
Kayatana, on the other hand, distributed her inheritance in advance. After her death, her personal property will be fairly distributed to her children and grandchildren by a family property distribution Committee. Among them, Carlos, the eldest son, will become the first heir, inherit the title of Duke Albert, and inherit wealth including many family castles and palaces in Madrid, the capital.
The youngest daughter inherited hundreds of acres of land in Ibiza in the Mediterranean and Andalusia in Spain. Distributing the inheritance in advance dispelled the children's doubts about the property.
20 1 1 She distributed the property in advance, and each of her six children got a palace and a lot of land and real estate. But this expensive marriage became the shortest marriage in Tana, Ka Ya.