Overview
- The memoir, co-written with French author Laurence Debray, went on sale in France on Wednesday, with a Spanish edition scheduled for December 3.
- Writing from Abu Dhabi, the 87-year-old frames the book as an attempt to reclaim his legacy and says he wishes to return to Spain and be buried there with honors.
- He expresses regret over the 2014 Botswana hunting trip and calls accepting $100 million from Saudi Arabia a “serious mistake,” noting he left Spain in 2020 after the payment became public.
- He says he feels abandoned by Felipe VI and former friends, acknowledges the king’s public distance as duty, and laments that Queen Sofia has not visited him in Abu Dhabi.
- The account revisits his role in Spain’s democratic transition and his televised intervention during the 1981 coup, while touching on his brother’s fatal 1956 shooting and his stated respect for Franco.