Diana assassinated? The queen, dead? Selling access to a prince? Buckingham Palace has
had to squash its fair share of rumors, but some stories fooled almost everyone — for a
while. Keep watching for hoaxes that left Royal watchers scratching their heads.
In March 2020, the world found out that Prince Harry was duped by prank callers, not once but
twice. Harry ended up engaged in a phone call with two people masquerading as environmental
activist Greta Thunberg and her father, but who in reality were professional Russian hoaxers Vladimir
Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov. As The Guardian reported, the pair were able to communicate by
phone with Harry while he was in Canada with his wife, Meghan Markle, and their son Archie.
Harry didn't reveal anything too dramatic in the phone calls, apart from a disdain
for former American president Donald Trump and for the tabloid papers that
continue to hound himself and Meghan, but royal courtiers and watchers alike
sounded alarm bells about the fact that the hoaxers were able to make contact in
the first place. As the Queen's former press secretary Dickie Arbiter told The Guardian,
the successful calls indicated a concerning lack of security surrounding the Sussexes. He said,
"As long as Harry and Meghan are over there, they're out of the protection of the system.
For all its faults, the system does, and is there to, protect."
Kate Middleton was hospitalized in December 2012 when a pair of DJs at an Australian
radio station placed a phone call to the King Edward VII Hospital, claiming to be
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles. The pair were able to fool the staff at the hospital,
who divulged personal information about Kate's condition. The hospital
later confirmed they'd been duped, with its chief executive John Lofthouse commenting,
"This was a foolish prank call that we all deplore. We take patient confidentiality
extremely seriously and we are now reviewing our telephone protocols."
While the call might have seemed funny at the time, it had dire consequences.
"It is with deep sadness that I can confirm the tragic death of a member of our nursing staff."
Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who connected the callers with the ward Kate was staying in,
was found hanged days later. She left behind a note that read,
"'I hold the Radio Australians Mel Greig and Michael Christian
responsible for this act. Please make them pay my mortgage. I am sorry. Jacintha"
Prince William later wrote a letter to Saldanha's husband,
who shared parts of it with The Guardian. William wrote,
"Jacintha and her colleagues looked after us extremely well and I am just so sorry that
someone who cared for others so much found themselves in such a desperate situation."
In June 2017, the world of royal watchers drew a collective breath when a story alleging that
a retired M15 agent had confessed to killing Princess Diana was dropped.
As Marie Claire shared, the tale went like this: At the age of 80, a man had been told
he had only weeks to live. Feeling a sudden sense of unease, he decided to confess to a major crime.
In fact, he supposedly confessed to a total of 23 assassinations,
with the death of Princess Diana being the only time he pursued a woman. This was also,
supposedly, the only "job" that had come directly from the royal family.
The story was eventually discredited when websites such as Snopes pointed
out that the original source, a website called YourNewsWire,
was known for spreading conspiracy theories, misinformation, and full-scale lies.
While February 2022 saw a fresh round of hoaxes pertaining to whether or not Queen
Elizabeth was still alive, it was hardly the first time that the monarch had to contend
with rumors of her own mortality. In 2016, Twitter was hit with a wave of “media blackout” hashtags,
which began, as the BBC reported, because some people believed Queen Elizabeth had died.
At the time, Queen Elizabeth had missed events around Christmas 2016 because she was sick. A
few days later, a Twitter user posted a tweet asking if there really was a media blackout,
as his wife had seen a rumor about it on Facebook. From there, a fake account,
designed to be very similar to the BBC's, began using the hashtag to tweet that the
Queen had passed away. Eventually, the rumor was quashed as people realized the account was fake.
In February 2022, Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen had contracted COVID-19.
Within days, a website called Hollywood Unlocked announced the Queen's death,
and founder Jason Lee doubled down on the claim on Twitter. PopCulture,
among other outlets, later verified that the Queen is still very much alive.
"And far from alarm bells clanging, there really is no real concern about the queen's health."
In 1996, television broadcaster Victor Lewis-Smith picked up the phone
and somehow managed to get all the way to Princess Diana. Once connected to Diana,
Lewis-Smith managed to convince her that she was speaking to none other
than internationally-acclaimed physicist Stephen Hawking.
The Daily Mail reported that at the beginning of the call, the two go back and forth about
Diana's ex-husband, Prince Charles, and former American president Bill Clinton. Then Lewis-Smith
went in for the kill: He asked Diana how rugby captain Will Carling was doing. At the time,
Diana was rumored to be in a relationship with Carling, but she didn't bite.
The whole phone call took place after Lewis-Smith called up Buckingham
Palace and claimed to be the public relations person for Hawking. Diana's private secretary
Patrick Jephson intercepted the call, and connected her to Lewis-Smith days later.
One thing led to another, and this particular phone call will certainly live long in infamy.
In 1995, Queen Elizabeth was victim to her own phone call hoax
when a Canadian radio DJ by the name of Pierre Brassard got through to the monarch
and enjoyed a 17-minute phone call in which he pretended to be Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
The fallout from the call was swift, and there was an entire change up at
Buckingham Palace going forward. The Mirror notes that calls from then
on have been staggered, first passing through the Private Secretary. From there,
the Queen will call back on her own line, ensuring that no one is recording.
In 2019, Prince Charles was pulled into a massive art scandal. It was discovered that
multiple pieces of art in the Prince's Dumfries House estate home in Scotland had been created
by an impressive forger, not the famous artists to whom the pieces were attributed. The alleged
counterfeiter, Tony Tetro, who said he was hired by art collector James Stunt, admitted to the
Mail on Sunday that he created paintings that were said to be from Monet, Picasso,
and Dali, and that the paintings, reportedly worth $134 million, were hanging in the home.
"Tony Tetro is one of the world famous forgers."
The Prince's Foundation later issued a statement about the incident, admitting,
"It is extremely regrettable that the authenticity of these particular
few paintings, which are no longer on display, now appears to be in doubt."
Stunt later insisted to the Daily Mail that the paintings were authentic.
In 2001, the Countess of Wessex was embroiled in a notoriously embarrassing scandal
when she was tricked by journalist Mazher Mahmood into making very incriminating and
embarrassing comments about both Prince Charles and former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Sophie,
Countess of Wessex, was reportedly under the impression she was going to meet at
the Dorchester hotel with a prince from Saudi Arabia who was looking for a public relations
expert. Instead, she was fooled into making comments that would come back to haunt her.
Sophie ended up owing huge apologies to both Charles
and Blair, and wrote each of them letters asking for their forgiveness.
Her comments about Blair included a dig at his wife, with Sophie saying,
"He's ignorant of the countryside. His wife is even worse,
she hates the countryside. She hates it!"
She also commented on the relationship between Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles,
who were then dating. She said,
"On the one hand there's no reason why she shouldn't be accepted because he's divorced and
she's divorced, but then again you've got issues of the monarch being the head of the Church."
In 2010, journalist Mazher Mahmood hit the royal family again. This time around,
he was speaking to Sarah Ferguson, the ex-wife of Prince Andrew, and nearly
managed to get insider information about Andrew — if he'd been willing to pay the hefty £500,000
price tag. As explained by The Guardian, Sarah was caught on video telling Mahmood,
who she believed was a foreign businessman, that she could get access to Andrew for him.
After that, she's filmed explaining that if Mahmood will pay the amount,
everything will go the way he wants it to. Sarah says,
"That opens up everything you would ever wish for. I can open any door you want, and I will
for you. Look after me and he'll look after you. [...] You'll get it back tenfold."
Sarah had to tearfully own up to the meeting once it came out
and Andrew denied having any knowledge of the meeting whatsoever. In her statement,
Sarah admitted her financial situation was difficult, but that, quote,
"is no excuse for a serious lapse in judgment and I am very sorry that this has happened."
"Well there aren't really very many words to describe an act of such great stupidity."
It's probably not too surprising that the early days of social media were pretty unusual,
and even the royal family didn't entirely escape being wrapped up in Facebook's infant stage.
Back in 2007, the Daily Mail revealed that Prince William
had been the victim of a fake profile scam on the social media platform.
The account, which was created with the name William Wales, the same name that William used
while he was a student at Eton. Most of the connections on the platform also seemed to be
real people who have real life connections to the future king himself. The Daily Mail
notes that one of those friends was named Katherine Middleton, spelled with a K,
but William's wife spells her first name with a C, not a K.
At the time, Buckingham Palace opted out of directly addressing
the possibility that William could be on social media at all, noting,
"We would consider it a private thing and not comment on it."
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more List videos about your favorite royals are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.