Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters
A day of royal drama and ceremony in Denmark culminated with a very public kiss between the newly crowned King Frederik X and wife Queen Mary following the official abdication of Frederik’s mother, Queen Margrethe II.
The couple’s kiss on the balcony of the Christiansborg Palace, site of the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen, came after weeks of whispers about the troubled state of their marriage following rumors Frederik that had an affair with socialite Geneveva Casanova after they were photographed together during his private trip to Madrid. Casanova denied the rumors.
Margrethe, 83, announced her abdication in her annual New Year’s Eve address—the first Danish monarch to voluntarily leave the throne in nearly 900 years.