Japan’s Princess Mako, the emperor’s niece, married her commoner “college sweetheart” yesterday, giving up her royal title. Mako even declined a $1.23 million payment to which she was entitled for leaving the imperial family, palace officials said. She is the first imperial family member since World War II to not receive the payment and chose to do so because of criticism of the marriage. Negative media coverage about the relationship has been so bad over the years, that palace doctors say that Princess Mako now suffers from PTSD.
So, it was no surprise that during yesterday’s press conference, she did not hold back when talking about her treatment in the media. Luckily, one of the members of our show speaks fluent Japanese and translated her historic statement for us.
Listen below:
