Queen Mary is opening up about the secret struggles she’s battled in her life, bravely revealing, “I felt very alone”.
Speaking to Danish newspaper Borneavisen, the 54-year-old said language was a big hurdle when she first moved overseas.
“When I moved to Denmark, I didn’t really know the language,” she recalled. “When you don’t know the language and you’re sitting at a dinner, or playing a game and can’t really follow, you feel a bit left out.”
But it was the loss of her beloved mum Henrietta “Etta” that left her feeling the most alone.
“It has been especially in certain situations,” she revealed, “When I lost my mother, I felt very alone.”
Mary was just 25 when Etta died in 1997 after complications from heart surgery. Tragically, her father John died earlier this year, on April 11.
Now, an insider tells Woman’s Day the homesickness has never really gone away – and it resurfaced this week as a series of cruel reports appeared in the media.
Stepping out for the state banquet in Copenhagen last week, Queen Mary looked distracted, as she wore Queen Alexandrine’s Sapphire Tiara for the gala dinner honouring Vietnamese President To Lam and his wife, first lady Ngo Phuong Ly.
“Mary makes her job look effortless but the truth is she’s having a rough time, and her incredibly frank interview has set off alarm bells. Opening up about how lonely she was after her mum’s death and how isolated she felt during those early days in Denmark, before she’d mastered the language, are genuine confessions, but it paints a dark picture when you consider what’s she’s going through today,” a source tells Woman’s Day.
“From the ongoing speculation about Frederik’s loyalty to the recent passing of her dad, Mary’s had to not only learn the ropes on the job – and not just any job either – but she’s also had to keep an eye on four kids going through extremely important years. Add to that the nasty trolling she has to endure, including reports claiming she’s had surgery.”
On the day of her beloved father’s memorial in Tasmania, Spanish bestselling author Pilar Eyre, 75, wrote about Frederik and Mary in a new column in Spanish magazine Lecturas.
She said that Frederik had behaved inappropriately at Norwegian King Harald’s funeral and that Mary is starting to “take on the aura of a queen” – speculating that Mary may have undergone cosmetic procedures – which Mary has never confirmed or denied.
“Mary would normally reframe surgery stories as a sexist form of flattery, but the truth is her coping mechanisms are at an all-time low, so small things like this are getting to her,” says the source.
“She and Frederik did have a wonderful summer, but it’s been hard to get back into the swing of things, and facing attacks on her looks, when she’s dealing with her grief for her father, is not just frustrating but aggravating. With all the things going on in the world, why does it matter if she looks her age or not? It’s exhausting.
“Mary has fantastic genes and a natural beauty she’s afraid of ruining with a surgeon’s scalpel. It’s cruel to suggest her healthy efforts and careful regimen – not to mention a summer of love with Frederik – can only be the result of surgery. Sometimes she feels like they don’t want her to be queen.”
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