“Do you know when I stopped being free? When I fell in love“These are words we can hear from the mouth of Carmen Martinez-Bordiu In the latest programme of ‘Lazos de sangre’, which, through archive material from Spanish Television and the testimony of family and friends, allows us to get to know a woman who has always been characterised by living her life as a “free spirit”.
His 73 years are full of both good and bad episodes: His three marriages are the ones we review belowbut they have been accompanied by three divorces, three pregnancies, the death of her firstborn son and his move to Portugal to enjoy anonymity He once inherited his mother’s fortune, where he has found love once more.
Don Alfonso de Borbón, the Duke of Cadiz
Carmen Martínez-Bordiú meets Alfonso de Borbón during his time as Spanish ambassador to Sweden “and she sees in him a ticket out, because she wanted to make her own life” Martín Bianchi tells the program. Carmen, for her part, describes it this way in 2008 during an interview on the program ‘Yo estuve ahí’: “He was handsome, he was a sweet, friendly, calm man… and since he was quite a bit older than me, that impressed me.”.
They got engaged in 1972 and their union practically became a state wedding, A royal wedding at El Pardo Palace: : In the invitations Alfonso de Borbón asks that he be addressed as “His Royal Highness” and his wedding is “that of a prince with a future princess” says Nieves Herrero also for the microphones of ‘Lazos de sangre’. As if that were not enough, A retired Cristóbal Balenciaga is in charge of making the wedding dress for the dictator’s first granddaughter.
Jean-Marie Rossi, her second husband
A year before they separated, Carmen Martínez Bordiú meets her future second husband, Jean-Marie Rossi, on a cruiseWith the renowned French antique dealer (22 years older than her) she moved to live in Paris and would have her third daughter, Cynthia.
Alfonso and Carmen separated in 1979, two years before the approval of the Divorce Law in the Congress of Deputies.Jean-Marie and Carmen would marry five years later, following having suffered two great losses that year: that of their first-born Francisco de Borbón in a car accident and that of Mathilda Rossi in a boat accident in Acapulco.
The third: Jose Campos
Carmen Martínez-Bordiú and Jean-Marie Rossi separated in 1995 amicably and with the same lawyer. Both continued to live in the same house although they had different partners, both enjoying raising their daughter.
A year before separating from Rossi, Carmen meets up with a friend from her youth, Roberto Federichi, with whom she had a 10-year relationship. After the end of this, she met the former athlete and businessman José Campos, whom she married in 2006, becoming her third and last husband, of whom divorced in 2013.
The Last Love: Tim McKeague
Carmen Martínez-Bordiú’s latest love experience is Tim McKeaguewhom his brothers describe as “old age dodder”. He is an Australian, a yoga teacher and emotional coach 34 years younger than her, whom she met on Carlos Matos’ boat, as her friend Teresa Bueyes tells us for our program. Her brothers, however, comment on this relationship: “That’s not a boyfriend or anything”.
Find out all the romantic episodes in the life of Carmen Martínez-Bordiú in the latest episode of ‘Lazos de sangre’, now available on RTVE PLAY.
