Elena Cue's Discreet Luxury Retreat

Elena Cue and her husband, Alberto Cortina.

Elena Cue, the Asturian who starred in the pages of the coated paper after her wedding to businessman Alberto Cortina, has lived for years in a discreet retirement, away from the covers of magazines. Her life runs between her luxurious house in Madrid; the “Las Cuevas” estate, of 1,600 hectares, and her Formalux mansion, in Mallorca. She has not given up on social life – in fact, the Cortinas offer luxurious dinners at home, and this summer she could be seen on the Balearic coast, on her husband's spectacular yacht – but she prefers to stay in a background. She has even given up going shopping in Madrid, and she prefers to travel to New York or Paris to do her shopping. Maybe she can and wants to. Among her leading designers are Roberto Cavalli and John Galliano, from the house of Dior, with whom she has a great friendship.

The reasons for the golden retirement of the Asturian gemologist may be in the judicial problems that her husband, Alberto Cortina, has been facing, who this week was again on the bench of the Provincial Court of Madrid. She, along with her cousin Alberto Alcocer, faces sentences between two and eight years in prison for alleged procedural fraud and falsification of a private document. And that after the “Albertos” managed to see their alleged crime for the “Urbanor case” prescribed by a ruling by the Constitutional Court.

According to the newspaper “El Mundo”, the judicial processes are shaking the ivory tower of the 37-year-old Asturian, who has a daughter, Alejandra, three years old. The couple – with an age difference of 25 years – is trying to weather the storm by spending more and more time outside Spain. They have even considered buying a farm in Kenya, as Cayetano Martínez de Irujo already did. Although they have reduced their social life, when they are in Madrid they hang out with a select group of friends, whom they preferably receive at home. Among them, Andrés and Corina Piedrahita stand out, representatives of the fallen financier Maddoff in Spain. They have also not given up going on hunts with Spanish high society, in which they have sometimes coincided with King Juan Carlos. A golden retreat that now shakes.

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