Prince Henrik, the husband of Queen Margrethe of Denmark, has gone to a Danish gossip magazine in an attempt to get more respect from his wife.
“My wife does not give me the respect that a regular wife should give to her husband,” the prince says in a clip posted to Se og Hør’s website.
The comments come just one week after Henrik revealed that he did not wish to be buried next to his wife of more than 50 years.
Speculation arose that Henrik, born in France, would prefer to have his body returned to his home country for burial but it seems that’s not the case; he’s happy to be buried in Denmark, as long as it’s not next to Queen Margrethe.
Henrik has always been vocal about his various disappointments with his marriage. The most common complaint is that he wants to be a king or at the very least a king consort rather than the internationally-accepted term of “prince consort”.
“I think she’s let me down. I think we are doing well together, but every man cannot accept that he is not on par with his spouse,” Henrik says.
“My wife has decided that she wants to be queen, and I’m very happy about that. But as a human being she needs to know that if a man and wife are married, they are equal,” Henrik says of Queen Margrethe, who became queen in 1972 after the death of her father.
Since retiring in 2016, the prince consort has spent most of his time in France, though the 83-year-old is not officially separated from 77-year-old Queen Margrethe.
“It’s her who makes me a fool,” Henrik says in the video. “I have not married the Queen to be buried in Roskilde.”
Queen Margrethe has so far remained silent on the matter, and Crown Prince Frederik has only made one public comment about his father since Henrik dropped the bombshell about his burial arrangements in early August.
“I only have to say that I’m really sorry for my father’s decision in a lot of areas. More cannot be said about this case at present.”