As mentioned by royal author Penny Junor in her book ‘Queen Consort: The Life of Queen Camilla‘, when the now wife of King Charles III met Prince William for the first time, her first reaction was to give an iconic phrase that is still funny today.
Meeting for the first time the eldest son and future heir of the then Prince of Wales was a real personal challenge for the Queen, as she was in a difficult position, as William’s mother had recently passed away and she was now his father’s new partner, making her his stepmother.
Queen Camilla was a little nervous about what Prince William might think of her, and he arrived a couple of hours early for the meeting, so the now queen consort’s first reaction was to say, “I need a gin and tonic“, as a joke, which worked as an icebreaker.
The meeting went smoothly, but the process of adaptation was not easy. A public relations expert, Mark Bolland, said, “It was difficult for them; it was a natural thing. You want your mum, you don’t want her, and she had her own family. To be fair to Camilla, she never tried to be mummy, she was the ‘other woman’ and she was there taking daddy’s time“.
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