Royal scandals throughout history

Diana’s bombshell book

In 1992, biographer Andrew Morton released a bombshell book, Diana Her True Story.

Citing a secret palace source, the book shockingly lifted the lid on Diana’s suicide attempts, eating disorders and Prince Charles’s affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.

Widely panned as rubbish at its release, Morton would later reveal after the princess’s death that Diana herself was the ‘secret source’.

Morton would write questions which were slipped to the princess by a mutual friend, who then sent back tapes and pages of notes to hide her involvement.

Tampongate

In 1989 a series of racy bedtime phone calls were recorded between Prince Charles and long-term friend, Camilla Parker Bowles.

Charles was still married to Diana, but the raunchy conversations included the future heir to the British throne discussing being reincarnated as a tampon so he could live inside his mistress.

Upon the release of the recorded conversations in 1993, Diana labelled the tapes as sick and many questioned whether Charles was suitable to be a future king.

Oops…he did it again!

It seems every time Prince Phillip opens his mouth, there’s a royal scandal in the making.

The Queen’s husband is notorious for lacking her diplomacy skills and constantly gets caught making inappropriate and racist comments.

On a visit Down Under in 2002 he asked a group of Indigenous Australians, “Do you still throw spears at each other?”

During an appearance at a hospital in Dunstable, a small town in England, the prince sensationally remarked to the nursing staff, “The Philippines must be half-empty – you’re all here running the NHS.”

And when a 13-year-old boy told of his dream of becoming an astronaut, the rude royal responded, “You could do with losing a little bit of weight.”

We suspect Liz breathed a sigh of relief when Phillip officially retired from formal duties in 2017.

A royal pardon

A 2001 police raid on the home of notorious royal butler Paul Burrell, found he had 310 of Diana’s personal items, worth a combined $8.4 million.

Princess Diana’s sister Lady McCorquodale insisted the items were stolen and Paul was charged with three counts of theft.

But 11 days into his trial, Queen Elizabeth intervened saying she gave Paul permission to keep the items. The charges were dismissed.

It has long been rumoured that the Queen got involved so Paul couldn’t testify, which may have led to embarrassment for the Windsors if he was forced to detail his time with the royals.

The bigamist king

The marriage between King George IV and Caroline of Brunswick was not a union of love.

In fact, until they were exchanging nuptials, the pair had never met.

George IV only conceded to the marriage as he had huge gambling debts and parliament agreed to raise his allowance if the king united England with the strategically placed court of Brunswick in Germany.

Unfortunately for Caroline, love would never blossom, as the King’s heart belonged to Maria Fitzherbert, who he had secretly married a decade earlier.

Upon his death, the king’s will left all his property to ‘Maria Fitzherbert, my wife’, while Caroline was left only one shilling from his fortune.

Nepalese royal family

During a monthly reunion dinner of the Nepalese royal family, Crown Prince Dipendra opened fire and shot his relatives.

Twelve dignitaries were killed, including King Birendra, before the Crown Prince turned the gun on himself.

Since he was next in the line of succession, Dipendra was crowned as the new king, while he lay in hospital in a coma. He never regained consciousness and his life support was turned off.

The attack was in retaliation after he was unable to marry the woman he loved, Devyani Rana.

Reality TV to royalty

When we imagine a royal bride, beauty, elegance and etiquette come to mind.

But Prince Carl Philip of Sweden broke all the rules when it came to choosing a suitable wife when he married Sofia Hellqvist.

The former model posed topless with a boa constrictor for a men’s magazine in 2004 and starred in Paradise Hotel, a reality TV show where scantily clad singles compete to stay at a luxury resort.

That’s a bit on the toes!

When she married into the British royal family in 1986, Sarah Ferguson was hailed a breath of fresh air that had blown the cobwebs off centuries of outdated traditions.

But a mere six years later, her marriage to Prince Andrew was on the rocks.

Fleeing Britain for some R&R, Fergie took her daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie for a holiday in a luxury Italian villa. Oddly, the trio was accompanied by her financial advisor John Bryan.

With only a low wall surrounding the property, Fergie was snapped sunbathing topless and having her toes sucked by John.

But most shocking for the British public was the images of them kissing in front of the then two-year-old Eugenie.

Unfortunately for Fergie, by the time the pictures were published, she’d returned from her trip and was visiting the Queen at Balmoral to discuss her future role in the family.

Her Majesty insisted Fergie and Andrew divorce, while she fled the palace in shame.

The Nazi Prince

When Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands announced her engagement to German diplomat Claus Von Amsberg in 1965, the Dutch people were so outraged they took to the street in protest.

Born into a noble German family, Claus had been a member of Hitler’s Youth as a child. With anti-German sentiment still running strong through Europe 20 years after WWII, the Dutch people delivered a petition with over 65,000 signatures to parliament asking leaders to deny permission for the marriage.

Beatrix refused to give up the man she loved and the wedding went ahead. Prince Claus eventually became a popular member of the royal family until his death in 2002.

Kiwi love child

Princess Anne’s marriage to Mark Phillips was rocked by scandal when it was revealed the former army captain fathered a secret love child.

While married to the Queen’s only daughter, Mark attended a horse riding clinic in Auckland where he met art teacher, Heather Tonkin.

Staying in a nearby hotel, the two planned to secretly rendezvous that night and Mark left his riding boots outside to help her find his room.

Since the one-night stand, Mark has refused to acknowledge his daughter Felicity, despite a DNA test proving he is the biological father. Once Princess Anne found out about the child, she filed for divorce.

Ruff day in court

After her English bull terrier Dotty, attacked two children in a park, Princess Anne became the first in the British royal family to be convicted of a criminal offence.

She pleaded guilty and was fined $930 and ordered to pay the same amount to the victims.

Dotty was also ordered to attend an animal behavioural program, and be kept on a lead in public at all times.

The Markle debacle

It was the wedding of the century – Hollywood hottie Meghan Markle marrying the world’s most eligible bachelor, Prince Harry.

Their fairytale romance would have made the perfect script for one of the rom coms the bride auditioned for just a year earlier.

Meghan’s ‘Markle sparkle’ quickly charmed the British public and just when it looked like all her dreams were about to come true, the world was introduced to her family.

Days before the wedding, pictures of Meghan’s reclusive father, Thomas Markle surfaced. He was googling pictures of Harry and Meghan in a public internet cafe.

The palace begged paparazzi to leave him alone, until it emerged that he’d been paid $100 000 for the staged photos. While speculation mounted on whether Thomas would still walk his daughter down the aisle, he gave a series of interviews to US gossip site TMZ, flip-flopping on if he’d even attend the nuptials.

Meghan’s family woes didn’t end with the wedding. A private letter from the Duchess to Thomas was leaked to the Sunday Mail and her half-sister, Samantha, who has publicly labelled Meghan as heartless and selfish, is writing an autobiography about the Duchess, which she’s titling Princess Pushy.

The prince and the paedophile

Prince Andrew’s friendship with American financier and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein had endured since they met in 1999, even after Epstein’s conviction for having sex with minors.

One of the victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has accused Prince Andrew (right) of abusing her, claiming, “He knows exactly what he’s done and I hope he comes clean about it.”

She claims Prince Andrew had sex with her when she was 17 years old. The royal maintains he’s innocent.