Queen Maxima's life changed on June 6th, 2018, when her sister Ines was found dead in her apartment in Buenos Aires. She was 33 years old. Seven years after the tragedy, Queen Maxima continues to remember and honor her sister, sharing a sweet statement as she launched a new online tool offering mental health support for young people who need it.
Queen Maxima participated in an official event in Utrecht, launching a new service titled In je Bol, an online tool that hopes to help young people develop better mental health resources. This issue has been affecting the community of young people in the Netherlands, with only over half of young adults qualifying as having good mental health. 14 percent of them were found to have poor mental health.
"It's important for us to continue to pay attention to these numbers and for us not to only focus on the problems. It's important to take a positive mindset," said Queen Maxima.
In the press conference ahead of the online tool's release, the Queen shared a moving statement discussing her relationship with her sister and her personal experience with mental health. "I often think of my sister Ines. Her death is the reason why I'm committed to helping with the health of young people. Not to make it problematic, but to work towards developing better mental resilience." The Queen also addressed her daughters, Amalia, Alexia, and Ariane, who fall within the age group that In Je Bol targets.
"Like my daughters and all of the young people that live in the Netherlands, we should be paying attention to mental health. There's nothing wrong with having a bad day. That's not a tragedy."
Maxima's sweet relationship with her sister
According to the Argentine press, Maxima's sister, Ines Zorreguieta, suffered from various mental health conditions, including depression. Years before her death, Ines was interned in a clinic due to an eating disorder.
Maxima and Ines shared a 14-year age difference. Despite this, the two shared a special relationship, with Maxima selecting Ines as Ariane's godmother in 2007. She was a music lover, participating in the Festival of New Voices in Argentina in 2014, where she played songs from acts like The Beatles, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix.
"In my house, we always listened to music. I remember my parents playing music from the '50s; Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, for example. But it was my siblings, much older than I, who made me listen to bands and compositions that I loved so much that they're some of the songs that I decided to play today," she said to the Argentine publication El Clarin.