Spain’s fabulously wealthy 85-year-old Duchess of Alba on Tuesday faced a topless photo scandal on the eve of her wedding to a civil servant 25 years her junior.
A 30-year-old photograph of the duchess as she sunbathed topless in Ibiza was splashed on the cover of magazine Interviu, reportedly prompting a legal threat.
“We are considering suing for interfering with her rights to privacy,” her friend and lawyer Javier Saavedra was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
Photo: EPA
The twice-widowed aristocrat, renowned for her frizzy hair and colorful dress sense, was to marry 60-year-old Alfonso Diez yesterday in the chapel of her 15th-century Palacio de las Duenas in Seville.
Spain’s media are devouring every detail of the nuptials and the duchess’ tussle with six children doubtful about the match.
The duchess has said she had to work hard to overcome her offspring’s objections.
She showered her five sons and one daughter several months ago with much of her estate — palaces, mansions and treasures, including masterpieces by artists from Francisco de Goya to Diego Velazquez, Bartolome Estaban Murillo, Rembrandt and Paul Rubens.
However, she kept control over the assets, ranging from palaces to lavish estates reputedly worth between 600 million and 3.5 billion euros (US$800 million and US$4.7 billion), until her death.
Guests at the Seville palace ceremony were to be restricted mostly to family. It was a dramatic change from Maria del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart’s first marriage in October 1947, described by the New York Times as “Spain’s most elaborate social event since the end of the monarchy.”
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