Tom Parker Bowles has opened up about his mother Camilla, the Queen Consort, and what he thinks about her new royal role in a new interview this week.
Parker Bowles, a food critic, mostly stays out of the media glare that comes with being a royal. After all, he’s not directly related to the monarch, as Camilla’s eldest child from her first marriage to Andrew Parker Bowles.
But, his mother has been in the spotlight for years, having had an extra-marital relationship with King Charles long before his marriage to Princess Diana was officially over. It wasn’t until long after their divorce and Diana’s death in 1997 that they started to go public with their relationship.
At the time of their wedding in 2005, Charles said Camilla would be known as the Princess Consort as the then-heir apparent’s second wife.
But before her death, Queen Elizabeth said she was happy for Camilla to be known as the Queen Consort.
Then, on the coronation invites sent out recently, she was referred to as Queen Camilla for the first time ever – which caused some discomfort among royal fans.
But, on Thursday, her son told The News Agents podcast that he did not expect anything to change now his mother is the wife of the sovereign.
He said: “She’s still my mother.”
He appeared to allude to the controversy around the royal’s ascent from the heir’s mistress to being “Queen Camilla” on the coronation invites, explaining: “I think change happens, but I don’t care what anyone says.
“This wasn’t any sort of end game, she married the person she loved, and this is what happened. I think that’s it.
“So, yeah, you’re not going to find us with great estates and being called the Duke of Whatever. No, that would be appalling.”
He emphasised that he did not expect to receive his own title, saying even after Charles is officially crowned in the coronation on May 6 he will “become nothing”.
“There would be a revolution if they start handing them [titles] out to people like me! No. Why would I expect one?” Parker Bowles continued.
He also claimed both the King and his wife were “doing amazingly” in their new roles.
He said his stepfather is someone who has been “ahead of his time” on pivotal issues like climate change, adding: “I think King Charles is a good, kind, intelligent man who cares deeply about his roles wherever they may be – Prince of Wales, The King.”
Charles has faced small protests since inheriting the throne, having allegedly been egged a few times by republicans, but his stepson insisted that “if people protest, people protest”.
Pressed over one of the most controversial parts of the coronation – Prince Harry’s attendance and Meghan Markle’s absence – Parker Bowles was quick to side-step it, noting: “Nothing to do with me at all.”
But he joked: “I did ask if Harry Kane was going as Captain of England.”