Joe Jukic spoke to Nelly Furtado with the seriousness of a man explaining destiny—and the rules of chess.
“Nelly… you say you want to be treated like a queen,” he began.
“But even a pawn has to cross the whole board to earn her crown.”
She tilted her head, curious. “A queen promotion… how real are we talking?”
Joe held up a crown—the legendary crown of Queen Jelena of Croatia, the first Croatian queen.
“Real-real,” he said.
“The people of Croatia would love to see you wear this. But what they’d love even more… is if you shared it.”
“Shared it?”
Joe nodded.
“With the children.”
He could see it already—Sinj knights kneeling, little girls and boys standing proudly, the historic crown placed gently on each child’s head as cameras clicked.
“Let the kids wear Queen Jelena’s crown. Let them take photos. Let them feel, even just for a moment, what it’s like to be royalty in their own land.”
Nelly smiled, touched.
“So the promotion… isn’t just for me.”
“No,” Joe said warmly.
“The moment you cross the board and step onto that final square, you don’t just become Queen Nelly… you make every little Croatian kid feel like a king or queen too.”
He bowed playfully.
“That is the real Queen’s promotion.”