Prince Charles embarrassment: Royal in 'explosive' comeback at BBC over Camilla probe
PRINCE Charles sparked the embarrassment of the Palace after getting caught making "explosive" comments in response to a question about Camilla.
Prince Charles: Experts on ‘explosive comeback’ over Camilla
Prince Charles took his sons William and Harry for a skiing holiday in the Alps a few weeks before his wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005. As on previous holidays, the Prince of Wales agreed to a one-off chat with the press in exchange for a quiet break with his sons. But a question about his upcoming nuptials provoked some embarrassment for the Palace after Charles' private comeback was accidentally recorded by the cameras.
Royal expert Richard Kay told Channel 5 documentary 'Scandal at the Palace,': "Nicholas Witchell, a distinguished and veteran royal correspondent of the BBC, asked the first question and it was about the wedding and how much he was looking forward to it.
"And Charles, for some reason, couldn’t resist answering this with a dose of sarcasm. He started off saying, ‘oh, you’ve heard of it, have you?’
"It wasn’t tongue-in-cheek, it was more than that, there was a bit of an edge to it. Sarcastic."
But the sharp response was shadowed mere seconds later when the Prince of Wales was caught sharing a cutting comment with William and Harry.
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Prince Charles, who was sitting very close to the camera and microphones, could be heard saying: “Bl***y people, I can’t bear that man. I mean, he’s so awful he really is."
Royal expert Daisy McAndrews noted the BBC team had not realised immediately the comment had been caught.
She said: "It was only later when the BBC reporters were editing their piece and were listening back to the recording that they realised they had this explosive moment caught on the microphones.
"Nicholas Witchell became the story rather than Charles, William and Harry becoming the story."
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Prince Charles reportedly harboured some displeasure towards Mr Witchell as he was believed to have played an integral role in setting up the infamous Panorama interview with Princess Diana before their divorce.
Ms McAndrews continued: "It was 1995 when Diana did her Panorama interview where we think Charles first started noticing Nicholas Withell and holding something against him.
"Witchell was integral to setting up that interviews, he was working for Panorama at the time and he was allegedly meant to be the one interviewing Princess Diana but was later promoted to the diplomatic corps."
Mr Kay also suggested the Prince of Wales had not approved of the comments Mr Witchell had made in an obituary to Princess Margaret, Charles' aunt, after she died in 2002.
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But despite the disagreement with the press ahead of his wedding, Prince Charles went on to marry his long-time partner Camilla Parker Bowles in an intimate ceremony in Windsor in April 2005.
Due to the pair both being divorced, Charles and Camilla had a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall which the Queen, as the Head of the Church of England, did not attend.
Her Majesty did however allow for a blessing to be held at St George's Chapel following the wedding in the same spot where Charles' younger son Harry would marry 13 years later.
The Duke and the Duchess of Cornwall celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary while shielding because of the coronavirus pandemic at their Scottish retreat Birkhall, on the Balmoral estate.