An alleged affair with his wife's old friend.
A bitter feud against his brother. And a Caribbean holiday that nobody will ever forget — for all
the wrong reasons. Keep watching for more of Prince William's most controversial moments.
Prince William and Kate Middleton may seem like the perfect royal couple, but the Duke
of Cambridge has actually found himself at the center of a salacious romantic scandal.
His father, Prince Charles, gained notoriety for having an extramarital
affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles when married to Princess Diana.
If risqué tattle is anything to go by, the apple allegedly doesn't fall too far from the tree.
Rose Hanbury, Marchioness of Cholmondeley, is a former pal of Duchess Kate,
but their friendship allegedly came to an abrupt end amid rumors
of a dalliance between Rose and William. According to tabloid In Touch, William allegedly cheated on
Kate when she was pregnant with the couple's third child. A source told the publication:
"William has carried a torch for Rose for years — he's raised eyebrows with his comments
about her grace [...] and even confided to pals that she was 'the one who got away.'
Kate immediately confronted him, demanding to know the truth about his relationship with Rose,
but he just laughed it off."
According to The Daily Beast, William and
his legal team attempted to suppress the publication of the rumors. For instance,
one British newspaper was warned against publishing details about the alleged affair,
making the situation seem even more suspicious. As royal journalist Duncan Larcombe said:
"If the stories of Kate freezing Rose out are true,
then whatever caused the falling out must have been very serious."
The British aristocracy is renowned for its hunting traditions:
King George V and company once killed almost 4,000 birds during just one outing. And,
despite his affable demeanor, Prince William is no exception to the royal love of hunting.
In 2020, he was condemned for taking Prince George, then aged 7, on a trip to shoot grouse.
PETA argued that William forcibly exposing his young son to animal cruelty may have
detrimental effects on his mental wellbeing. The organization's director, Mimi Bekhechi, said:
"For a child to be compelled to witness such casual killing — and by a parent he looks up to,
no less — is potentially as harmful to his or her psyche as it is to the bird's very life."
This wasn't the first time William had faced condemnation for hunting, either.
In 2014, the Duke of Cambridge shot dead wild boar and stag during a trip to Spain,
despite having slammed rhino hunters as "selfish" just months earlier. Indeed,
his penchant for hunting is in stark opposition to his conservation efforts.
In 2016, William even justified trophy hunting
in the name of conservation. In an interview with ITV News, he said:
"There is a place for commercial hunting in Africa, as there is around the world."
Lion Aid slammed the prince soon after, telling The Independent that there are a
mere "1,500 wild male lions in existence," making "sustainable" trophy hunting an impossibility.
In March 2022, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's Caribbean tour became the center of a heated
controversy. Their first engagement in Belize had a poor start after the couple attempted to
land their plane in a football field, leading to protests from locals, who deemed the act a
manifestation of the royals' colonial mindset. As one local told The Daily Mail:
"We don't want them to land on our land, that's the message that we want to send."
When the pair arrived in Jamaica, they were met with yet more protestors, who condemned the royal
family's history of imperial violence and called out the couple for their apparent imperviousness
to the sordid history of the monarchy. In an open letter, the protestors argued:
"We see no reason to celebrate 70 years of the ascension of your grandmother to the British
throne because her leadership, and that of her predecessors,
have perpetuated the greatest human rights tragedy in the history of humankind."
All in all, the tour was a total PR mess, and The Washington Post later questioned
why Prince William and Kate Middleton agreed to the ill-advised excursion in the first place.
The couple's open-top parade in a Land Rover, which was dubbed "absolutely awful" by one
protestor, left civil rights activist and professor Rosalea Hamilton saying that:
"These unfortunate images are a relic of the past."
In the wake of the controversy, the Duke was asked to apologize for the monarchy's
history of slavery; instead, he simply said that slavery was a, quote, "stain on our history."
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine shocked people the world over,
but the truth is that war in post-World War Two Europe is not such a foreign concept.
From the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which ended in 1998, to the Bosnian War
of the mid-'90s, large-scale conflict has been prevalent both in Europe and across the globe.
When offering his two cents on the Russia and Ukraine conflict,
Prince William was reported as saying that such a war was "alien" in Europe.
He was swiftly condemned, with CNN's Jake Tapper writing in a since-deleted tweet:
"Read a book about your own family, dude."
The tweet was accompanied by a photo of William's great uncle Edward VIII shaking hands with Adolf
Hitler, in reference to the abdicated king's alleged sympathies to Nazi Germany. Meanwhile,
others decided to educate the prince on the myriad wars that have affected Europe in recent decades.
In fairness, William had actually been misquoted slightly, as he actually pointed out
that war in Europe was alien for his generation. Still, it seemed that the clarification came
too little, too late, with the prince already having been royally lambasted on social media.
Despite the huge, albeit brief, controversy, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
apparently appreciated William's support, thanking him in a post on Twitter.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's now infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey
was full of damning confessions about the royal family — but perhaps the most contentious claim
was that a senior member of the regal family made racist remarks about baby Archie's skin tone.
"And also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born."
When Harry dropped the bombshell revelation, Prince William was swift to defend his family
against claims of racism, insisting that their family is "very much" not racist.
Notably, William seemed more concerned with defending the royal institution than his brother.
But the rift between the princes grew deeper amidst allegations of the dismissive
way in which William reacted to his brother's distress and hurt in the wake of those remarks.
Royal author Christopher Andersen told Us Weekly that both William and Prince Charles
supposedly called Harry "oversensitive" and believed he was "overreacting" to the incident.
As NBC News argued, the royals' alleged reactions to Meghan and Harry's unhappiness
"shine a spotlight on racial microaggressions." Meanwhile,
the act of calling someone too sensitive for being upset or offended has been often
regarded as a form of emotional gaslighting. As the publication Repeller highlighted:
"'You're being too sensitive' — in the wrong hands — is almost always an insult."
Tradition is so utterly sacred to the British royal family that any breach, no matter how
seemingly insignificant, is taken very seriously indeed. Prince Harry may have gained a reputation
as a rebel prince, but it turns out that his big brother is a renegade royal in own right.
Subsequently, when Prince William got down on one knee to Kate Middleton in 2010, he presented her
with a stunning sapphire ring. All seems pretty wholesome and romantic, right? Think again.
It turns out that the ring Wills bestowed upon Kate was at the center of much controversy.
The ring, which originally belonged to the late Princess Diana, was looked down upon by the
Windsor family because it broke royal tradition. This is due to the fact that the jewel was not
bespoke: Diana picked it out of a selection by former crown jeweler Garrard, meaning that anyone
with an extra $60,000 lying around could buy the very same piece. Anger in the Firm surrounding
Kate's ring will likely only get worse, as the popularity of The Crown has led to high demand for
copycat versions. Moreover, the fact that the ring formerly belonged to Diana opens up a whole other
can of worms, mostly relating to her notorious mistreatment at the hands of the royal family.
Following in the footsteps of his father, Prince William has
fashioned himself as something of a conservationist in recent years.
While the prince may try to do his best, his efforts have led to some truly misguided remarks.
In 2017, William gave a speech at the Tusk Trust, an organization focused on wildlife preservation,
in which he blamed overpopulation in Africa for wildlife loss. He said:
"Africa's rapidly growing human population is predicted to more than double by 2050. [...] There
is no question that this increase puts wildlife and habitat under enormous pressure."
Many subsequently argued that, as a privileged prince, William had little right to act as
the custodian of conservation in Africa. Conservationist Dr. Mordecai Ogada said:
"Conservation even now, nearly 55 years after Kenya got independence, is still the one arena
where Prince William can waltz into Kenya and tell us he wants us to do this, that or the other."
Accordingly, many accused William of harboring a "white savior" mentality,
arguing that African voices should be at the forefront of discussions about wildlife
loss in their homelands. Moreover, there was only one Black person present at the event,
amplifying the alleged inherent racism in William's remarks.
According to insiders, Prince William allegedly harbored animosity toward Meghan Markle.
In his book Battle of Brothers, royal expert Robert Lacey claims that William
furiously referred to his sister-in-law as "that bloody woman." The outburst, Lacey suggested,
arose after Meghan supposedly mistreated his staff. According to Lacey, Prince Harry
was extremely protective of his wife, deeming his brother's treatment of her as insulting.
But William was apparently unrelenting in his palpable dislike of Markle. There are even claims
that William tried to sway Harry against marrying the Suits star in the first place. In the book
Royals at War, it is alleged that William warned Prince Harry about rushing" into marrying Markle.
Critics have since argued that the royal family's alleged distrust, suspicion,
and dislike of the Duchess of Sussex is indicative of racism in the royal institution itself,
as well as a wider form of systemic racism that exists in the United Kingdom.
Vogue has suggested that, as an African American, Meghan was viewed as an outsider and arguably
faced far more scrutiny and censure than any other royal. Notably, even when Prince Andrew became
embroiled in a sexual misconduct scandal, the British media remained firmly focused on Meghan.
"My British friends said to me, 'I'm sure he's great,
but you shouldn't do it. Because the British tabloids will destroy your life.'"
The royal family's relationship with India has always been controversial. For instance,
the Koh-i-Noor diamond found in the crown jewels was taken from India, which the British
Empire colonized for 90 years. Accordingly, India has requested that Queen Elizabeth II
return the diamond, deeming the British acquisition of the Koh-i-Noor as theft.
Thus, there was much controversy when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge embarked on a tour of India
in 2016. Firstly, the couple was criticized for visiting a wildlife conservation with a
shoot-to-kill policy against poachers. Prince William enquired about the policy and was simply
told that poachers were using automatic weapons, while the conservation guards had older rifles.
However, even this has been disputed amidst claims that the guards have actually
fatally shot members of a local tribe, who merely attempted to pick food from the area.
What's more, critics argued that positive media coverage of the couple's visit
whitewashed the royal family's history of oppression against the Indian people.
For instance, William and Kate visited slums that housed an impoverished population,
where they lightheartedly played soccer with local children. Subsequently, The Independent argued:
"India may have gained independence nearly 70 years ago,
but that doesn't stop Kate and William using the country as a playground for their publicity stunt.
If we have to watch the two pose with 'slum children' [...] then we could at
least do so while telling the truth about Britain's horrendous history."
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