The official residence of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, Clarence House, has issued an official statement after claims were made in the media and on social media that Camilla seemed “bored” at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games.
Clarence House told The Australian Women’s Weekly’s Juliet Rieden: “The Prince and The Duchess thoroughly enjoyed the opening ceremony.They found it entertaining and moving particularly the indigenous musical performances and the smoking ceremony.”
The Duchess of Cornwall racks them up.
People across the globe have leaped to Camilla’s defence following the reactions to images of Camilla flicking through the official program during the ceremony.
Fans on Woman’s Day’s and The Women’s Weekly’s social media pages were generally flummoxed at how the Duchess engaging with official Games paparphernalia could be construed as being bored.
“It’s not like she pulled out a book to read. It was the ceremony programme… Nitpicking much?” wrote one Women’s Weekly follower whose response received several thumbs up.
“We just love to pick pick pick don’t we! Leave them alone. She didn’t do anything wrong in my eyes,” wrote another.
And a nowtolove.com.au favourite comment: “So you can’t look and listen at the same time. Woman multitask all the time.”
Slammed: Camilla and Australia’s First Lady Lucy Turbull double up for table tennis.
At a media briefing yesterday Commonwealth Games Federation President Louise Martin said the Duchess was far from bored just very busy.
“She was jet-lagged, she’d just got off the plane in the morning,” Martin said at a media briefing on Thursday.
“She did full duty right through and the only time she got a break was when she sat in the car from Brisbane down to here.
“Then she got 20 minutes to change before she went to another reception. When you’re back to back like that, coming off a long-haul flight… and she literally hates flying. She really wanted to go to sleep.”
And just a reminder at what these two royal septugenarians get up to in the course of the year: In 2017 the future King of England clocked up the most royal engagements with a staggering 550 appearances in 365 days, while Camilla notched up an impressive 227. To put that in perspective, Prince William performed 190, Prince Harry 191 and Duchess Catherine 106.
