Queen Rania of Jordan gained a new family connection in 2023 that drew international attention, when her daughter, Princess Iman, married Jameel Alexander Thermiotis, a man of Greek family heritage who was born in Venezuela and raised in the United States. Media around the world covered the wedding.
Among those present at the Jordanian palace that day was the groom's mother, Corina Hernandez. Despite the global coverage of the wedding and her presence beside her son at one of the most significant moments of his life, her name remains far less known than those of the royal family.
Hernandez has her own career in art and photography. Paradoxically, while her attendance at the wedding is not in dispute, she is essentially absent from the official photographic archive kept by the Royal Hashemite Court. The same is true of the groom's father, Alejandro Thermiotis, and of Jameel's grandmother.
The official photographic material instead focuses heavily on Jordan's royal family, with King Abdullah II, Queen Rania, Princess Iman, Jameel and other members of the dynasty pictured at many different moments. The absence does not mean the groom's family was not there. It means something more specific: they are not part of the official photographic record the palace makes available today.
Who is Corina Hernandez
Corina Hernandez was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and is based in Miami. Her professional life has been tied for decades to photography, art and design. On her personal website she describes her work as that of a conceptual photography artist, and lists her studies, exhibitions and professional activities.
Her involvement in photography began in the United States, where she studied at the New England School of Photography in the late 1980s. She went on to study at the Roberto Mata Photography Institute in Caracas, and continued her education through specialised workshops and fine art photography programmes. Her work has been shown in exhibitions in different countries, and she has also worked as an art and design consultant. Behind the title of "mother of Rania's son-in-law," in other words, is a professional identity she built long before her son became connected to Jordan's royal family.
From Dimitris to Jameel
Her son's story is just as striking, since the man now known to the world as Jameel Alexander Thermiotis was not born with that name. He was born in Caracas in 1994 as Dimitris Alexander Thermiotis, referred to in several reports as Jimmy. He was raised in a Christian environment and, through his father's side, is linked to a family of Greek origin.
His relationship with Princess Iman eventually led to a major personal change. Before marrying the daughter of King Abdullah and Queen Rania, he converted to Islam and adopted the name Jameel. The change was not simply a shift in the identity he used publicly. It was directly tied to his entry into the Jordanian royal family and his marriage to Iman. Dimitris Thermiotis thus became Jameel Alexander Thermiotis, moving from a businessman splitting his life between Venezuela and the United States to a member of one of the best-known royal families in the Arab world.
The family's Greek roots
The Greek side of the Thermiotis family has its own history. Jameel's grandfather, Dimitrios Thermiotis, was born on the island of Andros in 1922 and left Greece after the Second World War in search of a new life in Latin America. There he built a significant business in the distribution of luxury goods and perfumes. The family's path continued in Venezuela, where his grandson was born.
Jameel's Greek ancestry was one of the elements that gave particular interest to his marriage to Princess Iman. For Rania's family, though, the union was not simply a connection to a family of Greek descent. The marriage created a new family bond between the Hashemite dynasty and the Thermiotis family.
A wedding that joined two worlds
On March 12, 2023, Princess Iman and Jameel Alexander Thermiotis married at Beit Al Urdun, the residence where important royal events are held. The ceremony had a strongly traditional character and took place in the presence of the couple's close family and friends. For Rania it was one of the most significant family milestones of that period, as her eldest daughter entered a new phase of her life. For the Thermiotis family, it was the moment their son moved definitively from private life into the spotlight of the Jordanian monarchy.
Yet looking at the wedding's official photo archive today, the picture is strikingly different. The bride's family is everywhere. The groom's family is almost nowhere. Hernandez has no individual portrait. Alejandro Thermiotis likewise does not appear. Nor does Jameel's grandmother feature in the official images gathered in the Royal Hashemite Court's online gallery, which makes the case of Rania's new relative all the more notable.
A new generation for the family
The bond between the two families did not end with the 2023 wedding. Iman and Jameel had their first daughter, Amina, in February 2025. In August 2026 the family grew again, as the royal court announced the birth of twin daughters, Talia and Rania. The second name carries particular symbolic weight, as one of the two granddaughters was named Rania, after her grandmother. Three years after the wedding that brought Dimitris Thermiotis into the Jordanian royal family as Jameel, Corina Hernandez now finds herself in an even closer family relationship with Rania.
She remains, however, a figure better known for her own artistic career than for public appearances alongside the royal family. That may be the most defining feature of her story: the woman who became Rania's son-in-law's mother entered one of the most high-profile royal families in the world without ever becoming a public figure herself.
Rania's in-law stays outside the palace
Hernandez's relationship with the royal family is now an established family fact, but that has not translated into a public role. She does not appear as a figure of the royal court, holds no official duties and takes no part in the palace's day-to-day activity. Her appearances are tied mainly to family occasions, such as her son's wedding.
That explains why, despite being Princess Iman's mother-in-law and Queen Rania's relative by marriage, she remains relatively unknown to the wider public. Her story sits more in the background of a family that suddenly gained a royal dimension. From Caracas and the Greek roots of Andros to the palace in Amman, the Thermiotis family's journey has had several stops along the way. Hernandez, though, continues to keep her own life outside the systematic publicity that surrounds Jordan's royal family.
