Charles: “I want to feel myself along you, around you, up and down, in and out. God, I’ll just live inside your underwear. It will be easier.”
Camila: “Why will you turn into a pair of underwear?”.
Charles: Or to Tampax, what luck.”
Camila “You are a complete idiot. What a great idea.”
Charles: “Your greatest achievement is loving me.”
Camila: “Oh dear, it’s easier than falling off a chair.”
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She was the love of his youth, she called him Fred and he called her Gladys. Their booty call, which took place while Charles was married to Diana, was leaked in 1993 and dubbed “Camilla Gate” or “Tampon Gate” by the British media. The hot tape became an earthquake in the kingdom. Later she became the most hated woman in Britain and even “earned” the nickname “Rottweiler”. Now, with the death of Queen Elizabeth, Camilla Parker Bowles became the new Queen, or rather Queen-Consort. That’s how it happened.
In July, Camilla Parker Bowles, now the new queen consort of Great Britain, celebrated her 75th birthday. Her romance with King Charles was born five decades ago, and went through upheavals and dramas like only the British royal house can produce.
They met in 1971, she was 24 and he was 22. Yes, she was two years older than him, quite subversive in those days and in that scene. The click, so they say, happened at the first moment. “You know that my great-grandmother, Alice Keppel, was the mistress of your great-grandfather Edward VII. What do you say about that?”, she asked Charles shortly after they had spent time in a nightclub. It was a true fact. King Edward VII was indeed married to Alexandra, the daughter of the King of Denmark, but that did not prevent him from being a lover of women who were not his wife. Among his mistresses were Jenny Churchill, mother of Winston Churchill and the French actress Sarah Bernhardt. But his official mistress for 12 years until his death, was Camilla’s great-grandmother.
Camilla Parker Bowles | Photo: James Pearce, Shutterstock
Camila herself comes from a blue-blooded family. She was born in London as the middle child between a sister and a younger brother, Bruce Shand, an officer with the rank of major in the British Army, and Rosalind Shand, who would become a baronet. She attended a prestigious school and at the age of 16 was sent to finish her studies in Switzerland. At the end of her studies she moved to France and studied French literature before returning to London. At the beginning, she worked as a receptionist and secretary in the company, and later became a full-time mother.
And back to Camilla and Charles: their relationship went awry when he didn’t propose to her. They separated in 1973, he went to serve in the British Navy and she married a British Cavalry officer named Andrew, becoming Camilla Rosemary Shand, her maiden name, and officially Camilla Parker Bowles. Another royal anecdote: Andrew Parker Bowles dated Princess Anne, Charles’ sister, and according to some versions he actually cheated on Camilla with her while they were together. Camilla and Andrew have two children: Tom, 48, a food critic who has written several best-selling cookbooks, a broadcaster, entrepreneur and owner of a food and beverage company, and Laura, 45, an art curator and partner in a London gallery.
Throughout their marriages to others, Camilla and Charles maintained an alphatonic bond. According to biographer Penny Jr., their affair resumed after the birth of Camilla’s daughter and continued until his engagement to Diana Spencer in February 1981, whom he married the same year. Charles and Camilla kept in touch even when they were married and it got tighter in 1986.
Diana knew about her husband’s secret mistress. She called Camila a “Rottweiler”, and even confronted her.
“I know what’s going on between you and Charles, I wasn’t born yesterday and I want you to know that. Don’t treat me like an idiot,” Diana told Camilla. “You have everything you want, all the men in the world fall in love with you and you have two beautiful children,” Camila replied. “I want my husband,” Diana replied. That’s according to biographer Andrew Morton, who recorded Diana telling him about the alleged meeting with Camilla that happened at the party. Later, the princess said in the legendary BBC interview: “There were three of us in a relationship and it was too crowded.”
Princess Diana shows off the royal version of a little black dress | Photo: GettyImages
Camila was quoted in local newspapers in the days after her and Charles’ affair was revealed, saying: “I went through a terrible time. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemies. If it weren’t for my family, I wouldn’t have been able to survive it.”
Her son from her previous marriage, Tom, said on that occasion: “The paparazzi were all the time near our house, they followed us everywhere. We kept binoculars in my mother’s bathroom and through them we counted how many paparazzi were hiding in the bushes. We could tell easily because of the sunlight on their camera lenses. They were usually half a dozen.”
Charles and Diana separated in 1992, and were finally divorced in 1996. Camilla had divorced a year earlier, which was the catalyst for the official breakup of the royal pack. After almost 35 years of romance, Camilla and Charles got married. The modest event took place in April 2005 at the town hall in Windsor, in front of a limited audience of about 30 people. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were not part of this crowd. However, at Camilla’s first wedding with Andrew, Queen Elizabeth was present.
The burning hatred until the long-awaited seal: Camilla and Queen Elizabeth
From the beginning the queen did not like her son’s relationship with Camilla, a man’s wife and later divorced and mother of children, and openly opposed him. When the relationship became public she announced that she would not come to Charles’ 50th birthday due to Camilla’s presence there. After Diana’s death, she even forbade Camilla to attend the family events in the palace. In the book “The Rebel Prince: The Power, Passion and Defiance of Prince Charles” by the British writer Tom Bower, published in 1998, it is written that in a moment of drunkenness, Queen Elizabeth blurted out that Camilla was an “evil woman”.
Royal family. Camilla first from the left Photo: Lorna Roberts, Shutterstock
For years, Queen Elizabeth knew about the antagonism that Camilla arouses in the British public, and last February, on the 70th anniversary of her coronation and perhaps to prevent in advance the problems that would arise with her son’s coronation as king, she finally gave Camilla the kosher. Or in her words: “When my son Charles becomes king one day, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the support you gave me, and Camilla will be queen consort.”
And so, Camilla became the first divorced woman in the history of the British kingdom to bear the royal title. Charles, for his part, said in response: “We are aware of the great respect there is in my mother’s wish. My dear wife is my steadfast support throughout.”
Although Camilla tries to convey a popular attitude and does a lot of charity activities, in a survey conducted last year it became clear that only a third of British citizens think that Charles will be a good king. The main reason for the low percentages, according to the survey, lies in his wife, whom the British still manage to love after all these decades.
Last June, Camila was invited to a rare appearance in the British “Vogue” magazine. “It’s not easy,” she said of the hostile public opinion towards her, “I was scrutinized a lot throughout the years and I had to find a way to live with it. After all, no one likes to be scrutinized, and looked at all the time, but I think I manage to rise above it Because I have to move on with my life.”
About life with Charles today, she told “Vogue”: “We always try to find a moment in the day to spend time together. We sit and drink a cup of tea and discuss the day that was, or read our books in different corners of the room. We don’t have to have a conversation, just sit Together… it’s relaxing.”
What else calms Camila in life is gardening. “During the corona, decency allowed people to get through the period more easily, it was a spiritual experience of connection to the earth,” she said in an interview, “You enter the garden and you can get completely lost. There is no need to think about anything, you are surrounded by nature, the birds are chirping, the bees are buzzing There’s something healing about gardens. I’m lucky to have a big vegetable garden, but you also get the mice with them.”
Camilla Parker Bowles with Kate Middleton | Photo: Lorna Roberts, Shutterstock
In an interview with “Vogue” she also told about life as a grandmother, as a grandmother to five grandchildren: “The most fun thing about being a grandmother is that you can spoil your grandchildren with things that their parents forbid them. It’s very nice to receive text messages from the grandchildren. We learn a lot from the young society and they also learn from us. . My granddaughter lives near my house and sometimes I steal her to me. It scares me to see the girls who grow up interested in clothes and make-up and get their ears pierced, nobody will make me get my ears pierced.”
Camila, by the way, has always worn only clip-on earrings. Her style is as controversial as her persona. Camilla tried over the years to imitate Princess Diana, who, as we know, managed to turn almost any piece of clothing or jewelry into an icon. Camilla adopted, for example, the famous “revenge dress” worn by Diana after the well-publicized separation from Charles, a little black off-the-shoulder dress that reveals shoulders, which she accessorized with a pearl collar with a blue sapphire stone. Camilla replicated the look with a navy blue velvet dress in the exact same cut, with an almost identical choker necklace, except for the green emerald stone. Camilla borrowed another black dress from Diana during a visit to the Vatican, which was very reminiscent of the dress Diana wore on a previous visit to the Pope. In addition, she also adopted the white chiffon scarf that Diana used to cover her head with during her visits outside the country. Maybe now that she’s facing forward and has a new title, she’ll finally have a chance to develop her own style.
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