‘I hate to do that’: The story of King Charles with not-so-discrete public comment

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When Queen Elizabeth II ascended the British throne in 1952, her subjects mostly knew her as a young princess who was born into relative obscurity and had made a speech on her 21st birthday pledging to devote her life “at your service”. spend.

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King Charles III doesn’t benefit from the same blank slate: he’s spent his entire 73 years in the public limelight, during which his personal foibles and self-indulgent opinions have never failed to make headlines, cause international calamity, or boost the occasional big-budget TV series.

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Below is a selection of the less discreet comments that have shaped King Charles’ public profile.

“I imagine I need to get married as soon as possible and then all these people could relax a little… I still think my solution of marrying a girl from every Commonwealth country is the best.”

This comes from a 1980 love letter written by Charles to a Canadian woman who reportedly met the prince in 1975 while she was working at the British consulate in Montreal. The woman, whoever she is, eventually turned down Charles’ flirtation – and then sold the letters for five figures in the early 2000s. However, the most embarrassing moment of Charles’ love life that went public was a recording of a racy phone conversation between him and his then-lover (and now Queen Consort) — although we won’t go into detail about that here.

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“I hate doing this. damn people. I can’t stand this man anyway. He’s so awful, he really is.”

This comment was recorded with a hot microphone in 2005. In the middle of a Swiss ski holiday with his two sons, William and Harry, Charles gave a press conference to the ever-present crowd of paparazzi hoping they could give him some peace and quiet. The above quote, whispered to the young prince, was addressed to BBC correspondent Nicholas Witchell, who had asked Charles about his upcoming marriage to Camilla.

“Whatever love means, you can give your own interpretation.”

It’s now very clear that Charles’ 1981 marriage to Diana Spencer was a disastrous loveless union that probably shouldn’t have happened in the first place. The quote above is usually given as the first indication that something was wrong. During Charles’ first press conference with his bride-to-be, a reporter asked if the couple were in love. Diana replied, “Oh, yes,” but Charles gave the cryptic answer above.

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“And now Putin is doing much the same as Hitler.”

During a visit to Halifax in 2014, Charles said the above to a Canadian woman who expressed concern about Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea. The comment sparked a major diplomatic row between Russia and Britain and was condemned by British MPs who accused Charles of trying to steer British foreign policy. However, history would justify Charles for this comment: Just eight years later, Vladimir Putin would stage an all-out invasion of Ukraine on the very Hitler-like grounds that war was necessary to protect Ukraine’s Russian-speaking minorities.

“My wife is doing much better now than she was in the early afternoon and this is entirely due to the extremely favorable conditions that exist in British Columbia: the weather and generally fertile conditions which have ensured that she will soon have sextuplets really why she passed out. It’s not really true.”

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Princess Diana famously passed out during a visit to Expo 86 in Vancouver. As Diana later revealed, the breakdown was partly due to her bulimia, which left her with virtually no food for several days. The above bizarre quote was offered by Charles at an engagement that night and has since been used as evidence that he downplayed or dismissed his wife’s eating disorder.

“It has long been one of our great goals to visit every county of this majestic country before senility completely overtakes us.”

Charles and Camilla have spent some time in Ireland, a country his mother has only seen once during a historic state visit in 2011. Given Ireland’s violent separation from Britain shortly before Elizabeth’s birth, the country has long been something of a no-go area for British monarchs. But as the March quote shows, Charles’ taboo has definitely worn off. Meanwhile, Charles has gotten into a bit of a habit of joking about his advanced age. Last year, when asked about a health issue his mother had, Charles replied: “When you’re 95, it’s not as easy as it used to be. It’s bad enough at 73.”

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“Indonesia and the other rainforest nations are managers of the largest public utility company in the world. The rest of us have to start paying for it, just like we do for water, gas and electricity.”

The one major differentiating factor between Charles and his mother — and the one most likely to get him into trouble as a monarch — is his penchant for activism. While Elizabeth II kept her political and social views strictly to herself, Charles is an outspoken advocate of environmental politics, organic farming and alternative medicine. In 2008, during a visit to Indonesia, he expressed his not uncontroversial view that we should all pay taxes to the equatorial nations if they promise not to destroy the rainforests.

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“Hernia today, gone tomorrow.”

The royals spend a great deal of time tolerating the boredom of the British civil service, and it seems a good coping strategy is to have an arsenal of dry jokes and bad puns on hand. The quote above was how Charles addressed the press when he was discharged from the hospital in 2003 for hernia surgery. Around the same time, after being blocked from his path by screaming anti-monarchist protesters in Montreal, Charles responded with a demure, “I’m afraid there was a little local disturbance.”

“My old Aston Martin, which I’ve owned for 51 years, runs on – believe it – excess English white wine.”

During an interview with the BBC in 2021, in which Charles addressed the need for dramatic action on climate change, the prince noted that his vintage sports car runs on a unique renewable fuel, distilled from excess wine and whey produced at the cheese production remain. The comments led to criticism of the fact that the prince’s “wine and cheese fueled” car appeared to show no practical understanding of the realities of decarbonisation.