In September 2022, just weeks after Queen Elizabeth II passed away, Denmark’s Queen Margrethe decided that her own royal house needed some upkeep. She announced, seemingly out of nowhere, that she was stripping the royal titles and styles away from four of her grandchildren. The four kids were Prince Joachim’s children, the children of Margrethe’s second son, “the spare.” Joachim and his second wife Marie were incredibly hurt by the queen’s decision, and they gave tearful interviews questioning the wisdom of removing royal titles. Margrethe ended up apologizing to Joachim but she didn’t change her mind. In 2023, Joachim and Marie moved from France to America, where Joachim now works as some kind of government/military attaché with the Danish embassy. It felt and looked like a permanent exile for the Danish spare. Well, here’s further confirmation of that – Joachim will attend this weekend’s abdication event, but his wife and children aren’t coming.

Prince Joachim of Denmark will attend the abdication of his mother Queen Margrethe without his wife and children.

Queen Margrethe’s second son and his wife, Princess Marie, relocated to the United States last year with two of their children nine months after the monarch stripped Prince Joachim’s four kids of their royal titles, and Hello! has reported that Prince Joachim will attend her abdication day events on Sunday solo.

“Prince Joachim will be there, but the children go to school, there is no special reason,” a palace spokesperson told the outlet. The rep added that Princess Marie will stay in Washington, D.C., where they now live, and that Prince Joachim will leave Denmark the next day.

Prince Joachim is a father of four, and shares his two eldest sons, Count Nikolai, 24, and Count Felix, 21, with his first wife Alexandra. They divorced in 2005 after a decade of marriage, and Joachim remarried in 2008. He and Marie went on to welcome a son and daughter — Count Henrik, 13, and Countess Athena, 11.

[From People]

It’s very “Prince Harry attending his father’s coronation.” Meghan didn’t go, neither did Archie or Lili. Granted, in Denmark, they’re not doing some big coronation or anything involving pomp or fuss. The whole thing will be done in a bureaucratic way, with Margethe signing a document and then (presumably) King Frederik X signing something or some kind of proclamation being made by the prime minister. It would be interesting to hear if Princess Marie or Joachim’s children were even invited. Anyway, “the children go to school, there is no special reason” is very frosty. There are still a lot of hurt feelings for the way everything went down.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.