Mexican Teenager Who Staged Hunger Strike Gets to Attend Will and Kate’s Wedding

Meet Estibalis Chavez. This 19-year-old loves the entire British Royal Family, so much so that she has paintings, drawings, and dolls of Diana, Will, and Kate Middleton in her house. That, and she spent a 16-day-hunger-strike outside of the British Embassy in Mexico City.

Despite British officials telling her that they had absolutely no tickets left, Chavez continued on in February until Mexican lobbyist Octavio Fitch Lazo took pity on her and gave her the airfare to go to England.

Why did Chavez so want to attend the royal wedding (on April 29) so badly? She made an oil painting of Will and Kate and wanted to present it to the happy newlyweds. Her plan, she says, is to approach one of the many paparazzo and see if they can hand it off, as she knows she has no chance in giving it to a Royal Family representative.

And yet, she doesn’t think what she did is that strange: “At the time I didn’t see it as something so drastic and dramatic. [People] said I risked my health for something many believe to be frivolous and silly. But, I think that for me, it was the only way to achieve my goal.”

“It moved me to see that no one understood her very well,” Lazo told the BBC. “I think she is right to fight for what she wants.”