Personal Life of Queen Alexandra

Since coming of age, as both a monarch and an individual herself, Alexandra has led a well-documented and highly-publicised lifestyle, thereby making her a subject of frequent coverage by various media outlets. Although initially born second in line to the throne as her father's eldest legitimate child, on 13 October 2017, Alexandra ascended to the throne while her coronation ceremony took place on 1 August 2019.

Relationships

Emma Watson, an English actress best known for her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series

Much like her predecessors, in her own right, Alexandra herself is also well-connected to a number of famous individuals and celebrities, with her most well-known celebrity acquaintance being the English actress Emma Watson. In an interview with the BBC, it was reported that the Queen, who was said to have had a "deeply passionate interest" in playing the role of Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series, first came to learn of Watson after seeing the actress in the first few entries of the series, a decision that Alexandra herself later claimed to have briefly instilled in her "some sense of jealousy", given her own passionate dream of playing the role herself, which she ultimately failed to do given her extremely young age at the time of the first film's release, that being in 2001, at which point the royal was then only five years old, almost half a decade younger than the then-eleven-year-old Emma Watson at the time. Ironically, by the time of the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, the final entry into the series in 2011, Alexandra otherwise came to view the actress in a more positive light, so much so that the two later publicly embraced one another momentarily during the film's premiere at Trafalgar Square, London, with Alexandra herself later jokingly referred to it as the end of her feud with Watson over the Hermione Granger character, stating, "Whatever my feelings were before, Emma's clearly done a very good job portraying and bringing the character to life and that's personally good enough for me".

Aside from Watson, Alexandra is also particularly close with American actress Alexis Bledel whom she first met after becoming a fan of the comedy-drama series Gilmore Girls which Bledel starred in alongside Lauren Graham. To that end, the two first met one another at the 2006 Teen Choice Awards in California, United States where Alexandra, accompanied by her parents, met Bledel for the first time in public and was even later included in the latter's speech when she won the award for Choice TV Actress Comedy in which the actress described the royal as "my biggest little fan in the world". afterward, Alexandra herself even made a cameo appearance in the 2016 sequel Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life after having reportedly missed out on a chance of appearing in the preceding series due to her young age at the time. In 2014, she was even one of the few select guests in attendance at Bledel's wedding to American actor Vincent Kartheiser. Meanwhile, on the political side, Alexandra is known to be particularly close to Sanna Marin, Finland's prime minister from 2019 to 2023, with whom she has maintained regular contact and occasionally hangs out with during her spare time. In this, The Independent described them as "unlikely sisters with a bond seemingly bound by destiny", owing to their very close friendship with each other and them being only around a decade apart in age.

Following the marriage of her aunt Catherine, Princess Royal to American actress Jodie Foster in 2011, the first same-sex wedding involving a member of the British royal family, in the years that followed, Alexandra is said to have quickly become close with her new aunt-in-law whose intelligence was said to have greatly attracted the young princess to the American actress so much so that, as Alexandra herself later revealed, she would occasionally serve as a "home tutor" to the former, particularly in the French language given Foster's incredible proficiency in the language. In addition, Foster would also occasionally assist the royal in her academic studies including her well-known thesis surrounding media polarisation for which the two would hold late-night discussions in order to better improve Alexandra's thesis each time. Regarding this relationship, Alexandra has since come to describe Foster as her "second mother", stating, "Obviously, I very dearly love my biological mother and all for the entirety of my life but, when it comes to relationships between an aunt and a niece, I think the connection that I currently have with her is just very rare in nature and not something that you always usually see especially between an aunt and a niece. Overall, she has been very helpful when I needed her to and not to mention she is also smart, pretty, and kind".

Although born to a commoner mother, by whom she is the granddaughter of a Salvadoran immigrant, through her father, Alexandra is otherwise related to a number of other European royals including her second cousins King Frederik X of Denmark and King Paul II of Greece, her second cousin once removed King Harald V of Norway, and her fourth cousin Leonor, Princess of Asturias. In addition, Alexandra is also a distant niece of the late 20th-century English socialite and author Violet Trefusis who, after much speculation, was confirmed to have been the love child of socialite Alice Keppel and the Queen's great-great-great grandfather King William V whose affair with his royal mistress also led to the birth of Sonia Cubitt who was also an author like her sister. Meanwhile, by her aunt, Alexandra is the cousin of English model Georgia May Jagger, daughter of The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, and also the American model Kate Rodman, daughter of former American professional basketball player Dennis Rodman. Moreover, Alexandra is even distantly related to former British prime minister David Cameron who is her fifth cousin once removed given that the two share a common ancestor in King William IV whose illegitimate daughter Elizabeth FitzClarence by his royal mistress Dorothea Jordan is Cameron's great-great-great-great grandmother.

Romances

Jack Schlossberg

Jack Schlossberg, lawyer and grandson of former President John F. Kennedy through his mother Caroline Kennedy and who was also Alexandra's first serious romantic partner from 2016 to 2019

Beginning in 2014, while studying abroad in the United States, Alexandra began a discreet romantic relationship with Jack Schlossberg, an American lawyer and grandson of the late President John F. Kennedy. Beforehand, the two were said to have first met sometime in mid-2013 when Alexandra, unsure of her choice of university in the United States, sought the advice of Schlossberg, himself being an alumni of the prestigious Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. However, despite not ultimately taking up Schlossberg's suggestion of Yale University and instead opted for the more modest Seattle University in Seattle, Washington, warm longstanding ties between their two families, namely the Kennedy family and the British royal family, saw the two initially begin an initially unassuming friendship that gradually blossomed over the following months. Eventually, under much secrecy, the couple then chose to celebrate New Year's Day together in marking the arrival of the year 2014, an occasion that saw the two eventually begin a romantic relationship.

Although considered to be reminiscent of a previous short-lived romance between Schlossberg's mother Caroline Kennedy and Alexandra's father King Thomas, the couple's romance was otherwise widely welcomed by both of their families. In this, for the first few years or so, a number of personal duties on both of their parts, coupled with general assumptions of the two being slightly too young to take things seriously, saw Alexandra and Schlossberg take their romance somewhat slowly and casually early on. However, by late 2019, during which Schlossberg himself even attended Alexandra's August 1st coronation alongside his mother, after several years had passed, the couple mutually opted to make their relationship a more "serious" affair along with intending to finally publicise their relationship for the first time after having previously kept it a close-knit secret from the public and the media, of whom Alexandra was particularly concerned should her relationship with her partner be leaked to the public somewhat prematurely. To that end, on 31 December 2019, during her annual New Year's Eve address, Alexandra publicly remarked that she is "currently in a loving relationship with a certain man named Jack Schlossberg", effectively revealing her previously secretive relationship for the first time to both the public and the media. Then, on just the following day, the couple announced that they were officially engaged, with the timing itself said to have been deliberately timed to coincide with their relationship's sixth anniversary. Nonetheless, the subsequent onset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw the couple revert back into a state of silence and non-communication although British media outlets quickly reported that the two are living together in the United Kingdom despite them never appearing together in public during much of the pandemic although this itself was immediately attributed to Alexandra simply prioritising her own personal safety.

Eventually, on 1 January 2024, the date of their relationship's tenth anniversary, the couple were officially wedded in a grand ceremony at Westminster Abbey, making it the first time in almost a hundred years that a British monarch was married at the historic Anglican church given that both of Alexandra's father and grandfather had their weddings abroad at the family property of Oheka Castle in New York, United States, with King Frederick, Alexandra's great-grandfather, being the last monarch to wed at Westminster Abbey when he married his second wife Princess Margaretha of Sweden on 11 July 2015. Moreover, the wedding itself is also the second consecutive occasion to involve a Roman Catholic spouse after the previous one involving Alexandra's parents King Thomas and the American supermodel Christy Turlington. In this, Alexandra's four sisters, together with some of her close friends including former England Women teammates Leah Williamson, Beth Mead, Jill Scott, actresses Emma Watson, Alexis Bledel, as well as her cousin Georgia May Jagger and sister-in-law, the actress Anne Hathaway, together served as her bridesmaids whereas Schlossberg employed, among others, Alexandra's two brothers Prince Richard and William Smith and his second cousin-in-law, the actor Chris Pratt, as his groomsmen. In addition, its grand nature resulted in the expected attendance of various high-profile figures including local British celebrities Naomi Campbell, Harry Styles, Kate Moss, Ed Sheeran, and David Beckham as well as world leaders including US Vice President Kamala Harris, President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Japan's Empress Akiko, and Monaco's Prince Albert II. Meanwhile, in a tribute to his family's Irish ancestry, Schlossberg donned a white suit adorned with a green floral trim whereas Alexandra, amidst rumours of her commissioning a new wedding dress for the occasion, instead donned her mother's own wedding dress that was previously worn at her parent's wedding, a decision that she later explained was down to both a desire to keep the overall costs of the wedding relatively low and the royal herself having found her mother's iconic wedding gown to be the "most beautiful dress I have ever seen", for which her mother quickly granted her eldest daughter permission to wear it at her own wedding as a sign of her blessing for the union as a whole.

As the first British royal consort to be of Irish ancestry, coupled with the complex history between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, a debate soon arose over Schlossberg's new title as a royal consort especially given that he was only the second male consort in British history after King George I, husband of Queen Mary III, although, as a reigning sovereign himself, he was simply declared king jure uxoris in his own right whereas Schlossberg is otherwise a commoner. Eventually, on 15 January 2024, despite an alleged offer for him to be made "Duke of Belfast", referencing the Northern Irish city of Belfast, Schlossberg revealed that he does not intend to be made a duke himself and is instead content with simply being made a prince consort, a title that Alexandra officially granted to her husband the following day, thereby officially making him "John, Prince Consort" along with the accompanying style of "His Royal Highness".

Interests

Anti-Semitism

Participants at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia carrying Neo-Confederate flags, Confederate battle flags, Gadsden flags, a Nazi flag, and a flag depicting Mjölnir

Since coming of age, Alexandra has been an active and outspoken proponent against anti-Semitism, an issue which she considered "personal" and "close to myself as someone of Jewish background". Incidentally, her Jewish background, coupled with her overtly liberal character, has consequently made her the subject of various conspiracy theories, many of which are anti-Semitic in nature, including the Royalgate conspiracy which claimed that the Queen had used her vast personal wealth to supposedly influence the results of the 2020 United States presidential election which was won by Democrat Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris while Republican Donald Trump and running mate Mike Pence otherwise suffered defeat.

Beginning in 2017, Alexandra has come to be a strong critic of the United States's then-president and real estate mogul Donald Trump who she once attributed to "the rise of anti-Semitism in a country known for both its diversity, as well as for its liberty". For instance, in an August 2017 op-ed article published by The New York Times just a few days following the infamous white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which took place from 11 to 12 August 2017, Alexandra herself personally denounced the rally, which she called a "blatant and unmistakable evidence of the increasingly problematic rise of both white supremacism and anti-Semitism in the United States". In addition, Alexandra has also personally criticised Trump for his perceived links to either white supremacist or far-right politicians and organisations, including his then-senior advisor Stephen Miller, who was later revealed to have promoted articles from white nationalist publications, as well as the far-right political movement QAnon who would later become infamously involved in the attack on the United States Capitol on 6 January 2021.

Back in the United Kingdom, the Queen's spirited condemnation of anti-Semitism has also prompted calls from a large number of local Jewish leaders and a considerable number of members of the public urging for her to also criticise then-Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, a controversial figure in British politics who has been the subject of various accusations and allegations concerning anti-Semitism. However, given her requirement to remain largely neutral in British politics, Alexandra has otherwise mostly avoided openly criticising either Corbyn or other politicians. However? in a somewhat rare exception, in response to Corbyn's dismissal of a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission concerning anti-Semitism within the Labour Party, which he framed as having been "dramatically overstated for political reasons", the Queen remarked, "As an ever-changing country with a strong tradition of liberal democracy, the United Kingdom, through its politicians, who command and attract followers and supporters, must always remain consistently committed in safeguarding that sacred tradition against any unsavoury elements that seek to infringe upon it, which includes, among others, unwarranted prejudice or discrimination against any particular group, be it based on sexuality, religion, race, and gender. Otherwise, to abandon such a duty could and will amount to unfortunate consequences that may change the country as we know it".

Latin America

The Salvadoran politician Nayib Bukele being sworn in as President of El Salvador, a post which he has held since 2019

Despite her predominantly British heritage, her partial Hispanic roots via her maternal grandmother has also led to Alexandra becoming a rather vocal figure, particularly on issues concerning Hispanics and countries in Latin America as a whole. To that end, as the granddaughter of a Salvadoran immigrant, Alexandra has at times criticised the "corrupt" and "self-serving" regimes in the region whom she claimed are "fostering and cultivating a constant state of lawlessness and instability" thereby contributing to the region's reputation for crime and poverty. In addition, Alexandra has also expressed her sense of despair at the outflow of professional talent from Central America due to its often violent and turbulent nature, stating, "Obviously, I'm not necessarily saying that my maternal grandmother emigrating abroad is wrong per se but in the grand scheme of things, the fact that these seemingly promising countries are losing valuable talents each day, be it to violence or migration, is just absolutely disheartening and definitely plays a great deal in preventing or stunting a nation's overall development".

Since ascending to the throne, Alexandra has made several visits to Latin America with the most notable instances being her state visits to Cuba and El Salvador, the former a communist country run by the Castro brothers and the latter a country recently emerging from its previous state of lawlessness under the current presidency of Nayib Bukele who the Queen herself personally met. Aside from this, she has also visited the countries of West Indies, Barbados, and Belize, all of which are members of the Commonwealth of Nations. However, lingering tensions and longstanding disputes since the Falklands War meant that the Queen is yet to visit Argentina in an official capacity although she has met several famous Argentinean figures, namely those in the sporting industry such as the late Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, and Diego Simeone. In addition, Pope Francis, the current head of the Catholic Church, is also Argentinean and has previously met the Queen himself.

Media Polarisation

In recent years, Alexandra has also come to be a notable voice in the issue of media polarisation, an issue which she described in an interview with The Guardian as "close to my heart, given especially my status as a public figure who's bound to receive more media coverage than arguably any other individual". In this, the Queen also cited the months she spent living in the United States, primarily in order to further her studies, as another reason behind writing the thesis, stating, "When I lived in an American city, it was quite obvious that I'm going to be immediately exposed to the American media, especially the news outlets. From the looks of it, the media environment there looked so toxic and felt very negative, especially with one side just relentlessly bashing and scrutinising the current president who they just happen to dislike".

Moreover, her strong passion for the cause against media polarisation has also seen her engage in intermittent but well-publicised feuds with the likes of Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch whose ownership of a large number of media outlets in both the United States, the United Kingdom, and in Australia itself, a situation that was described by Alexandra herself as "perhaps the single most undemocratic thing to ever exist in the 21st century aside from the obvious few dictatorships still existing in the world". To that end, during the course of achieving her Doctor of Philosophy degree, Alexandra notably wrote a thesis titled The British & American media compared: A case for a truly fair and nonpartisan media in which she compared and contrasted the different media environments in the United States and the United Kingdom respectively while also criticising the perceived "dangerous levels of media polarisation" in the United States, a situation that she once likened to a "warzone between the liberal-leaning CNN and the conservative-leaning Fox News that is owned by a man who is not even an American citizen". Conversely, she has otherwise expressed praise for what she perceived as the comparably less polarised media environment of the United Kingdom which is mostly dominated by the likes of the BBC and its close rival ITV, both of which traditionally commit themselves to impartiality.

Religious Pluralism

Having been born to a Protestant father and a Roman Catholic mother, as well as being the descendant of a Jewish grandmother, Alexandra is also a noted advocate for religious pluralism, be it within religious sects themselves or between religions in general. During a 2018 interview with the BBC, the Queen remarked, "The matter of the fact is, with the increasing tide of religious extremism and fanaticism we're seeing in recent years, especially from certain groups, co-operation, or at the very least, a spirit of peaceful co-existence between all the major religions of the world must be established because at the end of the day, religions are here to stay, perhaps until the end of mankind and it is best for everyone that they are not necessarily abused just to stoke conflicts and cause wars wherever they may be".

For instance, in July 2018, in response to a BBC article in which a Roman Catholic priest was reportedly attacked by unidentified assailants while a march by the Orange Order was happening nearby, the Queen publicly voiced her criticism of the incident, and, in an apparent subtle endorsement of calls to have such marches, dubbed "orange walks", be rerouted, called for "vigilant measures to be taken immediately in order to ensure that no such ugly incidents ever happen again", stating, "Be it in England, Scotland, or anywhere else in the United Kingdom, incidents like this must fully remain unacceptable and shunned by every layer of society". Similarly, in recent years, the Queen was also known to have been somewhat critical of the Dutch-born politician Geert Wilders who she once indirectly accused of "stoking unnecessary division and hate amongst a pluralistic and tolerant society" during a speech on religious tolerance and multiculturalism.