King Charles may hold a strained relationship with his two sons, but it was widely understood that he holds deep affection for his grandchildren.
Prince William and Kate Middleton’s three children, Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, 7, are often seen exchanging sweet smiles and gestures during public outings. Their balcony appearances have often melted hearts of the public.
However, it appears that the image of a ‘doting grandfather’ image was allegedly all a ploy to make Charles appear in the good books of the public, especially after Prince Harry’s explosive memoir painted quite an unflattering image.
A family friend of the royal family revealed that the relationship between the King and his heir to the throne has been tense and the two rarely ever talk informally.
The source shared that majority of their communication mediated by their private secretaries, the insider told The Royalist, adding that they do not meet informally as a rule.
Moreover, a former Buckingham Palace staffer shared that even during the Balmoral visit, the King did not have a private one-on-one with the Waleses and remained in his Birkhall retreat.
He also noted that Palace had been making attempts to ‘recast himself as an engaged father, was a poor parent’. Charles was known to be an absent father and he still “remains distant from his Wales grandchildren”.
As a result, William is doing things as differently as he can in a living rebuke to his father.
In previous reports, it was revealed that George, Charlotte and Louis lovingly refer to Charles as ‘Grandpa Wales’.
More recently, Queen Camilla’s son shared in an interview that his children love their step-grandfather. Tom Parker Bowles described the King as “a wonderful step-grandfather” and said his two children – Lola, 16, and Freddy, 14 – “utterly adore him”.