HE may be living in exile, but he’s not exactly slumming it.

Reporters from the television programme Viva la Vida have traced Spain’s disgraced King Emeritus, Juan Carlos I, to a secluded, paradise island in Abu Dhabi.

A 15 minute boat ride from the mainland, Nurai measures just one kilometre squared and is home to a swanky hotel as well as 11 luxurious villas that are ‘hidden behind vegetation.’

One of them, worth an estimated €11 million, has become the former king’s exile pad.

Owned by the Al-Qubaisi family, with whom Carlos I is staying, the two-storey house has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a panoramic sea view, spacious lounges, a snooker room, a table football room, its own cinema, a private beach, and an infinity pool.

OPULENT: The first photos of Carlos I’s home on Nurai.
Featured image source: @amnalqubaisi_offical Instagram

Altogether the plot is some 4150 metres squared.

Embroiled in numerous controversies, among them an elephant-hunting trip to Botswana in 2012, Carlos I abdicated in 2014 and has since been investigated for various financial crimes.

These include the use of ‘opaque credit cards’, for which he had to pay €678,393,72 to Spain’s tax agency in what constitutes an admission of fraud.

He left Spain on August 3, 2020, to go into exile, which is apparently not so bad after all.

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