The enduring love story between King Charles and his wife Camilla, now Queen Consort, traces back to 1972 when they first met at a polo match.
Introduced by their mutual friend Lucia Santa Cruz, daughter of the Chilean ambassador, they began dating. Their relationship was interrupted when Charles joined the Royal Navy, and during his absence, Camilla became engaged to her then-husband, Andrew Parker Bowles.
Despite these circumstances, Charles and Camilla remained emotionally close. Even during Charles’ marriage to Diana, they maintained contact.
“Charles was not convinced he was doing the right thing in marrying Diana but there was no way out and, bolstered by the hope that things would be different once they were married, he put a brave face on it” she recounted, as reported by the Mirror.
Furthermore, Camilla and Diana initially had a cordial relationship, but circumstances later changed.
“I met [Camilla] very early on. I was introduced into the circle, but I was a threat, a very young girl, but a threat,” Diana explained in the book *Diana: In Her Own Words*.
According to Prince Charles’ authorized biography, their love affair began in 1986, while Charles was still married to Princess Diana, who eventually discovered her husband’s infidelity.
Diana confronted Camilla once, but nothing changed.
Discussing the troubles in her marriage and its ultimate failure, Diana told Martin Bashir during a televised interview, “Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”
Charles and Diana separated in 1992 and divorced four years later.
Shortly after their separation was finalized, the press leaked a transcript of a conversation between Charles and Camilla, revealing intimate and sexual exchanges between them.
Before its detailed publication, the paper ran a headline titled “Charles’s Secret Bedtime Phone Call.”
The intimate conversation became known as “Tampongate” due to its tampon reference.
Fast forward to today, Charles is the King of Britain and Camilla is Queen Consort. Over the years, the British people have grown to accept and appreciate Camilla, and her reputation has continued to improve. Though they now lead the country together and are happily married, there was a time when Camilla feared leaving her home due to public backlash following the revelation of her affair.
Speaking to OK Magazine, royal expert Angela Levin, author of the 2022 book Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall: A Royal Survivor, disclosed that Camilla endured “torrents” of mistreatment from the public when news of the affair surfaced. She avoided going to stores and instead had her friends run errands for her.
“It was very difficult for her, as she was portrayed as the most wicked woman in the world. She was constantly called nasty names like ‘rottweiler,’ and it must have come as a huge shock that people were so vile about her,” Levin explained.
To protect her, it was revealed that Charles funded Camilla’s security for years, until their marriage in 2005.
“I don’t think Charles realised how awful it was for her. He was often away on engagements and working hard for the country and Commonwealth, and at the time, Camilla didn’t have protection officers because she wasn’t part of the Royal Family. But when Charles finally realised, he did get protection for her, which he paid for himself,” Levine revealed.
“She still gets nervous about things,” Levin added. Camilla may feel uneasy about Charles’ coronation because “she can never be sure how people are going to react towards her.”
“There’s a small but very harsh group of people who still think she’s the wrong woman for him.”
