COPENHAGEN: Denmark’s popular Australian-born Crown Princess Mary will become queen on Jan 14 when her husband Crown Prince Frederik accedes to the throne after his mother’s abdication, capping her real-life fairytale.

Born in Hobart, Australia, on Feb 5, 1972, Mary Donaldson was working as an advertising executive in Australia when she met the future king while out with friends at Sydney’s Slip Inn bar, during the summer Olympics in 2000.

She only discovered later that he was the crown prince of Denmark and his group of friends was made up of other European royals — including his younger brother Prince Joachim and cousin Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark.

“The first time we met, we shook hands,” she said in an interview several years ago.

“I didn’t know he was the prince of Denmark. Half an hour later, someone came up to me and said, ‘Do you know who these people are?’” After a discreet long-distance relationship and numerous under-the-radar visits, the couple became officially engaged in October 2003 and married on May 14, 2004 in Copenhagen Cathedral.

They are now parents to four children: Prince Christian, 18, who will one day become king after his father, Princess Isabella, 16, and twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, who turn 13 next week.

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2024