Salvation came to him from a providential interview, published in the December 2018 edition of
Vanity Fair US
magazine .
In this long-term interview, King Charles III was just 70 years old and already felt peaceful and resilient.
A happiness that he said he owed to the birth of his grandchildren, Princes George (9 years old) and Louis (5 years old), and Princess Charlotte (7 years old), as well as to the aura of his two sons Harry and William.
But also – and above all – to his wife Camilla.
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Married in 2005, the duo has been gratifying the British with their repeated giggles for eighteen years, punctuating their stays in the four corners of the world.
A gaiety that would almost make us forget the scandals that shook the existence of the two sovereigns, whose coronation is scheduled for May 6 in London.
These rumors, proven or not, have long undermined the credibility of the son of Elizabeth II.
So much so that in April 2017, the
New Yorker
had titled one of its articles: “This moment when Prince Charles slipped”, taking up the less glorious episodes of his life.
In video, Charles III and Camilla received in ball gowns at Bellevue Palace in Berlin
First there was that moment when, at the age of 14, he had a glass of alcohol taken in his hand.
Then the rumors around his acute sensitivity, his fame as a "playboy" and his indelicate remarks during certain official trips.
Not to mention the tragic outcome of his marriage to Lady Diana.
So many controversies from which King Charles III ended up departing.
To finally draw a line (definitive?) on the dark days and disgrace.
“Cherry Brandy”, the glass of discord
Quietly seated with his classmates in a Scottish pub in 1960, Prince Charles was 14 when he ordered a glass of cherry brandy, unaware that a celebrity journalist was watching him from the
bar
.
"I asked for the first drink that came to mind because I had drunk alcohol before, when it was cold, while hunting," he confided to Vanity
Fair
.
As a result, the bodyguard, another paternal figure of the king, was dismissed without warning.
“I could never forgive them for doing that…recalls Charles.
I thought it was the end of the world.”
When Lady Diana's sister humiliated him
Before engaging with Lady Diana, the latter had a nine-month relationship with the older sister of his future wife, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, revealed in 2018 the
Daily Mirror
.
But the young woman puts an end to their idyll during a television interview for the less categorical.
“Our relationship is completely platonic, she confided to James Whittaker
.
I see him as the big brother I never had.
I wouldn't marry a man I didn't love, whether it was a garbage man or a king of England.
If he asked me, I would refuse.
According to the
Now to love
website , Prince Charles, in anger, would have shouted at her: “You just did something incredibly stupid”.
The very embarrassing interview of his engagement
Long before the tragic end of the marriage of King Charles III and Lady Diana, the couple's engagement already set the pace for this unsuccessful union.
At the time, the 32-year-old man and the 20-year-old woman had only met thirteen times before he proposed.
Their official interview turns into chaos.
“Are you in love?” asks the journalist.
Charles III then brushes aside the question: “It all depends on what one calls love”.
The replica would simply have "traumatized" Lady Diana, as she recounts in the documentary
Diana: in Her Own Words
.
His affair with Camilla
The couple divorced in 1996. The major reason for this breakup was none other than Camilla Parker Bowles.
In 1992, a few weeks before her wedding, Lady Diana discovered a bracelet in her husband's office.
An employee then confesses to him that he is destined for Camilla Parker Bowles.
An episode that the former wife of the monarch will not mention until 1997, in an interview, tells the
Mirror
.
"I was too immature to understand all the messages that came to me," she explained.
And then someone at my husband's office told me he had a bracelet made for her."
The same year, she tragically died in a car accident in Paris.
Criticized for the tragic fate of his first wife, Charles will not remarry until 2005.
Camilla's stamp
The roads of the Prince of Wales and the one who is still called Camilla Shand cross for the first time in 1978. Love at first sight is immediate.
However, the young woman is deemed unworthy of the future king, who then enlists in the Royal Navy.
She therefore married Andrew Parker-Bowles in 1973, and Charles married Lady Diana in 1981. The only downside, in 1992, a conversation between the duo surfaced.
An exchange of the most subtle, when the one who is then only heir to the throne of England indicates that he would like to “live in the pants of Camilla”.
“What are you going to transform into, panties?”, laughs the future Duchess of Cornwall, then Queen of England.
“Or, God save me, a tampon,” he replies.
It's just my luck."
When he was caught complaining about a journalist
In 2005, Prince Charles was peacefully staying in the ski resort of Klosters, Switzerland, with his sons Harry and William.
Alas, the microphones of several journalists pick up a private conversation, during which the future sovereign complains about the journalist Nicholas Witchell: “Cursed journalists, he grumbles.
I can't stand this man.
He's so awful, really."
Words that will not have arranged his relations with the professionals concerned.
In video, when King Charles III loses patience because of … a pen
He would have two illegitimate children
In September 2017, the world became acquainted with former Marine lieutenant Janet Jenkins in the columns of the daily newspaper
The Globe
.
"I was Charles's mistress for sixteen years," the Canadian then proclaimed.
“It was a long-distance relationship… the clothes were just ripped off and left where they fell,” she continues.
At the time, neither of us used protection.
It was before AIDS and we just didn't think about it.
Nine months after this alleged affair, she gives birth to her son Jason Jenkins.
Some time later, it was Australian Simon Durante-Day's turn to claim that he was the prince's son, conceived before his marriage to Lady Diana.
The trip to India of Lady Diana and the prince
Lady Diana poses alone in front of the Taj Mahal.
(Agra, February 11, 1992.) Getty Images
The scene is etched in everyone's memory.
In February 1992, Lady Diana posed alone in front of the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, the temple of love.
Meanwhile, her husband, Prince Charles, attends a meeting in Bangalore.
According to photographer Arthur Edwards, author of the famous shot, the photograph already indicated that the couple was struggling.
Nine months later, their split made headlines.
Her embrace on an Australian beach
In 1979, Charles III, on tour in Australia, experienced a new misadventure.
While jogging by the sea, he is approached by a model in a bikini, who rushes to him, kisses and hugs him on the beach.
The photo is revealed in the documentary
Elizabeth: Our Queen
, broadcast on Channel 5. A story which, at the time, helped fuel the playboy image of the son of Elizabeth II, who had not asked for anything .
When he came close to the diplomatic incident in China
On tour in China, the one who is renowned for his repeated clumsiness, had almost caused a diplomatic incident.
While speaking to a student in Beijing in 1986, he slips to him that he will return home with “stuck eyes” if he works too long.
A remark in questionable taste, which will earn the British ambassador to China technical unemployment for several days.
The Nazi Costume Scandal
If, a priori, Prince Harry's bad taste costume has nothing to do with his father, Queen Elizabeth II seems convinced of the opposite.
In 2005, the sovereign criticized her son for the attitude of Prince Harry, pointing to his “desperate need for paternal attention”.
The media, meanwhile, wonder how the Prince of Wales was able to let out his son, thus decked out with the Nazi symbol.
The huge expenses of the heir
In March 2018, Tom Bower's unauthorized biography,
The Rebellious Prince
, accused the current king of the United Kingdom of spending recklessly.
According to the author, the latter took his own mattress, his toilet seat and two of his paintings on his official trips, thereby causing unnecessary additional costs.
Manias again revealed in 2022 by the New York Post.
Not to mention that the monarch would have taken the royal train just to visit a pub.
A ride that alone would have cost 18,916 pounds (21,000 euros).
It's expensive the first sip of beer.