Being part of a monarchy seems like a dream,
but if you've seen The Crown, you're probably aware that Buckingham Palace is no playground.
While it's fun to watch, the pressure of withstanding the heat of being in
the royal family is a lot to handle. Here are the biggest royal snubs of all time.
The decades-long love affair between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles should
sound like a fairy tale. Unfortunately for the couple, the world tends to see this relationship
as one borne of tragedy in the wake of Princess Diana's death, and Queen Elizabeth seems to agree.
Camilla's long-standing affair with Charles has attracted the queen's ire for many years now.
Charles and Camilla have been the subject of palace drama since the early 1970s,
when they briefly dated. However, they split, and Camilla became engaged to Andrew Parker Bowles
shortly after. Despite being married to someone else, Camilla continued to be a
figure in Charles' life. She was even present at his wedding to Diana. According to People,
Charles and Camilla restarted their relationship in 1986,
which put pressure on Charles' marriage. In an infamous BBC interview, Diana said,
"Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."
The queen was reportedly furious about Camilla's role in ending Charles' marriage, with the Daily
Mail reporting a tipsy Queen Elizabeth even went so far as to call Camilla a, quote,
"wicked woman." The queen did, however, give Charles permission to marry Camilla
and hosted their reception, but refused to attend their marriage ceremony in 2005.
While that certainly sounds like a snub, The Telegraph reported,
"[The queen] is putting her duties as the head of the Church of England before family."
Perhaps the most famous royal snub occurred in
1996 when Diana and Charles divorced. Per the Mirror,
"[D]espite Diana’s insistence, she was stripped of her title of Her Royal Highness,
and instead became known as Diana, Princess of Wales."
According to the Mirror,
"More humiliating, though, was that she herself would now have to curtsy to her husband,
her two sons, and a whole host of minor royals.
But perhaps more pertinent was that losing her royal title also meant that Diana lost any
connection to the royal family — including any future claim to the British throne."
Diana agreed to give up the title in exchange for a large
sum of money and the continued use of her royal apartments,
although she was reportedly distraught over Charles' insistence on taking the name away.
Unfortunately, Diana died in a tragic car accident in 1997, and soon after her
death there were calls to restore Diana's HRH status. However, as the BBC reported,
"Buckingham Palace consulted [Diana's] family [...] and says the Spencers'
firm view was that the Princess herself would not have wanted
any change to the style and title she had at the time of her death."
Twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson's marriage to the Duke of Windsor,
formerly King Edward VIII had long ruled as the biggest royal marriage scandal in recent history.
Edward famously abdicated the throne in order to wed Simpson, who divorced her
second husband to be with the duke. Edward was reportedly madly in love with Simpson.
Time reported, when asked if he would honor his vows at the altar,
"Edward cried 'I will!' in a shrill voice that was almost a scream."
"I think he was ahead of his time. I think he had lots of pep and was very much ahead of his time."
The royal family, however, was not charmed by Edward's devotion to his American bride.
Unsurprisingly, The Firm absolutely did not approve of the marriage.
The entire royal family skipped the wedding, and the couple was banished to France,
and only permitted to return to England if King George VI allowed it. The Guardian
even reported that the Crown used financial blackmail to keep the scorned lovers at bay.
On social media, a little pettiness goes a long way. Although brothers Prince William
and Prince Harry have reportedly been on the outs since around 2017,
the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge still made an effort to wish Harry
a happy 36th birthday in 2020 via Instagram and Twitter. The post read,
"Wishing a very happy birthday to Prince Harry today!"
Along with the sweet message, the Cambridges shared a photograph of
Harry running a charity race with his brother and sister-in-law. The rest of the family joined in,
and similarly sweet posts were seen on the Twitter accounts of the royal family
and Prince Charles. However, Vanity Fair reported,
"A mini-controversy erupted when a commenter claimed it was a snub that
they chose a photo that didn’t include Meghan; [...] that comment had more than 4,000 likes."
Celebrity publications including Elle and OK! bolstered the claim,
asking why the post would neglect to include the most important person in Harry's life.
Royal superfan blog Gert's Royals defended the crown, and wrote,
"Looking back at the other Royal Birthday tweets this year,
most did not include the spouse in the photo."
While additional drama is always developing between the brothers,
the case that Will's post was not an intentional slight can also be made, especially as Will and
Kate wished Meghan a happy birthday in a post that didn't mention Harry just a month before.
Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew married in 1986 in a lavish Westminster Abbey ceremony. The pair
divorced in 1996, following some scandalous 1992 photographs of the Duchess of York laying topless
while her financial advisor sucked her toes. And yet, Andrew and Fergie continued living
together at the Royal Lodge in Windsor after their divorce, and have remained close friends
ever since. Her friendship, however, apparently does not extend to the rest of the royal family.
The nastiest bit of royal wrath to fly her way happened in 2011,
when Prince William and Kate Middleton tied the knot. Although Fergie's daughters, Princess
Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who are the queen's grandchildren, were invited, the Duchess
of York was not. To escape the festive buzz and drown her woes, she flew to Thailand to escape.
Ferguson later revealed in an Oprah interview
that being nixed from the guest list was very hard to deal with.
"It was so difficult because I wanted to be there with my girls, getting them dressed."
She said that although Andrew helped her feel like she was part of the big day by keeping
in touch with her during the celebration, it was still very painful to be left out. She revealed,
"It was so hard because the last bride up that aisle was me."
Most outsiders, including Princess Diana, have a tough time fitting in with the royal family,
and impressing the royals is a lot tougher than just knowing which fork goes with the salad.
Diana apparently had a particularly hard time managing Princess Margaret,
Prince Charles' aunt and Queen Elizabeth's only sibling.
It seems that any welcoming sentiment Margaret may have had did not withstand royal scandal.
According to Craig Brown, author of Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret,
Margaret was reportedly furious at Diana for giving intimate details of the affair
between Charles and Camilla during her 1995 interview with the BBC. Brown told Fox News,
"Margaret was very unforgiving. She wouldn't even
have magazines with Diana's face on the cover nearby. She would turn them over."
The interview so incensed Margaret that she reportedly disliked Diana until the very end.
It was also alleged that Margaret refused to give a real bow to Diana's casket. Instead, per Brown,
"[Margaret gave] the most cursory of nods, almost as though she were warding off a fly."
As for the notion that a statue of Diana would be erected at Kensington Palace,
Margaret allegedly said,
"I'm not having that woman outside my bedroom window."
Basically, Princess Margaret managed to turn snubbing into a spectator sport.
On February 19, 2021, Buckingham Palace released a statement announcing,
"The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have confirmed to Her Majesty The Queen
that they will not be returning as working members of The Royal Family."
The statement also revealed that Meghan and Harry would lose all of their royal patronages
or military appointments having officially stepped down as senior members of the royal
family. Although this was all purportedly coordinated and arranged between the Duke
and Duchess of Sussex and the Crown, Meghan and Harry's response to The Firm's statement
carried an air of shade. A spokesperson for the Sussexes said in a statement,
"[T]he Duke and Duchess of Sussex remain committed to their duty and service to the UK and around the
world, and have offered their continued support to the organisations they have represented
regardless of official role. We can all live a life of service. Service is universal."
In Meghan and Harry's explosive March 2021 interview with Oprah, they both claimed they
maintain a warm personal relationship with the queen. However, Meghan also explained,
"I don't know how they could expect that, after all of this time, we would still just be silent
if there is an active role that The Firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us."
"Were you silent or were you silenced?"
"The latter."
Princess Anne apparently made it no secret that she did not feel that her sister-in-law
Princess Diana was fit to be part of the royal family. According to biographer James Whitaker,
"Anne was irritated by Diana,
the constant carry-on in the press about her clothes and her charm."
Anne's feud with Diana came to a head in 1984 after the birth of Prince Harry.
Apparently, Diana neglected to invite Anne to be Prince Harry's godmother.
When asked about Anne as a potential godmother for her future children,
Diana made her feelings very clear, according to Whitaker, who claimed Diana allegedly retorted,
"I just don't like her. She may be wonderful doing all that charity
work for Save the Children and others, but I can do it as well."
In retaliation, Anne reportedly refused to attend
Harry's christening, claiming that she was attending a shooting party instead.
However, according to Whitaker, the excuse wasn't believed by anyone.
Sure, most royal snubs are petty and pointless, but now and again they are
definitely well-deserved. Following the fallout from his friendship with convicted
sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Prince Andrew was apparently ignored by the queen's official
social media accounts on his 61st birthday. While most royals receive a social media
birthday tribute via the Crown's official Instagram and Twitter accounts, Prince
Andrew received only a brief mention on the Royal Family's Twitter feed.
Typically, the queen's beloved relatives are usually celebrated with a sweet message.
Prince Andrew's birthday tweet, however, was straight out of a museum brochure, featuring a
couple of historical photos, and a complete lack of celebration, or the words "happy birthday."
The situation has apparently caused strain between the queen and Andrew, who some people,
including anyone who's watched season 4 of The Crown, believe is Queen Elizabeth's favorite
child. At first, it seemed she was not taking the Epstein scandal seriously enough, and in 2020,
the queen received plenty of nasty Twitter replies for celebrating Andrew's birthday
after revelations of the prince's connection to Epstein had been revealed in the press.
We're guessing that Queen Elizabeth, or whoever controls her social media channels,
is more attuned now to what's appropriate to share on the internet,
and which scandals, or members of the family, should be avoided.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry signed off their tenure as senior members of the royal family with
a final official public appearance at the 2020 Commonwealth Day service. Reportedly, Meghan and
Harry were not allowed to join the procession of royals that included other members of the royal
family. Instead, they were to find their seats ahead of time and wait for the rest of The Firm,
a move which appeared to make both the Duke and Duchess of Sussex appear tense.
It was speculated that in an attempt to smooth over the awkward tension, William and Kate skipped
the procession and joined Meghan and Harry in their seats, but not before extending an awkward,
and very short, greeting to the couple, before the ceremony began. Buckingham Palace,
however, offered no official explanation for why William and Kate headed directly to their seats.
Unfortunately, 2,000 programs had already been printed showing that Will and Kate were originally
supposed to be part of the main procession, while not mentioning Harry and Meghan at all,
making the snub glaringly obvious to anyone in attendance at the event. It's safe to
say that William and Kate's interaction with Meghan and Harry at the 2020 Commonwealth Day
service will go down as one of the most awkward moments in royal history, and a definite snub.
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