The Real Reason 1 Royal Lady Never Wears Her Engagement Ring in Public
Royal ladies wear some of the most beautiful jewels in the world. We’ve seen them in sparkling tiaras, dazzling necklaces, and of course, stunning diamond engagement rings.
The Princess of Wales (formerly known as Kate Middleton) is rarely seen without her iconic engagement ring, which once belonged to Princess Diana. But another royal is rarely photographed with her ring on.
Here’s who that is and why she barely wears it in public.
Which royal doesn’t wear her engagement ring?
Former news anchor for CNN+ and Televisión Española Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano began dating then-Prince Felipe of Spain in 2002. The Spanish royal family announced on Nov. 1, 2003, that the couple was engaged.
The current monarch proposed to his future wife with a ring designed by Suárez, a Spanish brand established in 1943. According to the diamond experts at the retailer jeweler Steven Stone, the engagement ring for Letizia isn’t the typical style of royal engagement rings.
“Queen Letizia’s engagement ring is very unique in comparison to other royal rings, which mostly feature a large center stone and perhaps smaller stones on either side,” Maxwell Stone explained. “Instead, her sophisticated band features 16 vertically set baguette-cut diamonds in either a platinum or white-gold setting.”
The expert gave an estimate of how much the ring is worth saying: “From looking at the ring, it looks like it has a value of around £20,000 ($25,000 USD) to £25,000 ($31,000 USD).”
Felipe and Letizia married on May 22, 2004, at the Almudena Cathedral in front of around 1,200 guests, including then-Prince Charles, Prince Albert of Monaco, and Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden.
But these days the queen is hardly ever seen wearing the ring in public, and there’s actually a simple explanation for that.
The queen revealed the reason she rarely wears her ring
There have been several reports and theories over the years about why Queen Letizia has decided not to wear the ring.
Some believe it has to do with Iñaki Urdangarin, who was previously married to Felipe’s sister Infanta Cristina and reportedly picked up the ring for his then-brother-in-law to keep the proposal a secret. It’s rumored that he paid for it using a credit card belonging to the Noos Institute. But that came under scrutiny when Urdangarin was convicted of embezzling millions in public funds for sporting events through his nonprofit foundation and was sentenced to prison.
However, Queen Letizia has since shared that the reason she stopped wearing her diamond sparkler along with her gold wedding band is because she has to meet a lot of dignitaries every day and with the endless handshakes — the rings hurt her hand.
