Laviollette said:
How does the media refer to Mabel? Is it Princess Mabel, Mabel Wisse Smit, wife of Prince Friso? Just wondering. There is always a frenzy surrounding her and her past. It's a wonder she ever returns to the Netherlands. Will they ever forgive her for her past they way Norwegians let CP MM alone about her past?
Alexandria has some good insights on this one, and I think in addition, it comes perhaps down somewhat to this:
In early 2001, there was doubt in the Netherlands whether Willem Alexander should be allowed to become king, because his then-serious-girlfriend, Maxima Zorreguieta, had a very controversial father who had served in the seventies as a minister of agriculture for a controversial, if not bloody, regime in Argentina.
One of the reasons I believe that the Dutch collectively embraced Maxima on the day of her engagement to Alexander, is because she was clever and realistic enough to realize she had to address this very matter of her father's past.
And she did, on the day of the engament, when she famously distanced herself from the Videla regime and anything to do with that.
I strongly believe it is because of this brave forthcoming performance on that day that Maxima is so accepted in her new homeland. (I have no idea on whose advice she did this, but I believe Beatrix and Claus and of course Alex must have a lot to do with it)
And you know what, for all her smarts, Mabel really didn't do anything of the sort.
That is, yes, she did come a bit cleaner about the friendship with that gangster Bruinsma, but only after an investigative reporter in the Netherlands had spectacularly dug up an old body guard of Bruinsma. This man, the Chilean Da Silva, famously stated in front of shocked Dutch tv viewers: "Mabel, do you remember me? I do remember you."
After this, Mabel STILL denied a strong friendship with Bruinsma, and only admitted that she'd stayed overnight on his boat a couple of times. But she dismissed these overnight stays as nothing more than something a lot of people did in the context of sailing competitions.
Only after the Dutch prime minister rightly smelled a rat, sat down with the couple and drew the truth out of them, only after that did Mabel and Friso send the government a letter expressing regret over the whole affair and basically 'resigning from royal duties' in not asking formal permission for their marriage, which meant Friso losing his right to the throne.
You'd think that after this, more mistakes couldn't be made PR-wise by this couple. But on the eve of their wedding some 6 months later, they did a tv interview with the most prominent tv personalities of the Netherlands.
And what happened in that interview I believe, sealed the perception of the Dutch towards Mabel forever.
I watched the interview. When asked whether she had had a relationship with Bruinsma, Mabel haughtily answered she never had a liefdesrelatie, or love affair, "with this Mr. Bruinsma."
It came across more or less as a repeat of President Clinton's "I didn't have sex with that woman, miss Lewinsky." To most viewers, that is. One national paper, the Algemeen Dagblad, did a poll afterwards and found that a whopping 78% of the population did NOT believe Mabel on this one. Go figure.
If, as Mette Marit had done, Mabel had tearfully acknowledged she had had a friendship with this guy when she was a young and naive student, I am convinced people would be far more lenient with her than they are today. She brought her reputation really onto herself.
I never thought I'll see Friso smiling but here it is:
