Latest news with #TroopingTheColour
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Prince William & Kate Middleton's Kids at Trooping the Colour 2025 Have Fans Saying the Same Thing
Prince William & Kate Middleton's Kids at Trooping the Colour 2025 Have Fans Saying the Same Thing originally appeared on Parade. and appeared with their three kids—, 11, , 10, and , 7—at the 2025 Trooping the Colour. And their rare joint appearance left fans saying the same thing. On Saturday, June 14, the Princes of Wales and his family stepped out for the event celebrating King Charles III's birthday. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 Middleton, 43, rocked a robin egg blue outfit and hat as Prince William, 42, donned a traditional military uniform. Meanwhile, Princess Charlotte donned a light blue dress, while her brothers wore matching black suits with white undershirts and red ties. After the procession from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade and back, the royal family stood on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch the Royal Air Force flypast. There, fans noticed the young royals' sibling antics as they waited beside their parents and other family members. After Trooping the Colour 2025 ended, royal fans took to X to share their favorite moments involving Prince William and Kate Middleton's kids—and many agreed that Prince Louis stole the show. One X user wrote alongside the brothers riding in a carriage, "Prince George and Prince Louis cracking up about something. 😂 He's a class act!😁🥰." In response to a different photo of Louis, another X user shared, "Prince Louis is always so adorable." A different royal fan wrote, "Prince Louis' little teeth are stealing the spotlight today. That cheeky smile is just too cute!" Someone else on X pointed out a photo of the royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, writing, "You know Prince Louis said something funny here. So adorable! 🥰." Yet another X user noted a sweet moment involving the monarch and the young prince. "There's a lovely bond between Prince Louis and the King," they declared. "Meanwhile, someone else on X declared, "I love Prince Louis so much #TroopingTheColour," of the 7-year-old turning back to gave the crowd one last wave before leaving the balcony. , 40, , 43, and their two children, , 6, and , 4, did not participate in the Trooping the Colour festivities amid Harry's ongoing rift with the royal family after stepping back from his duties and moving to the U.S. Next: Prince William & Kate Middleton's Kids at Trooping the Colour 2025 Have Fans Saying the Same Thing first appeared on Parade on Jun 14, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 14, 2025, where it first appeared.
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The off-Broadway play imagining Prince George as gay
Last Saturday, Prince George cut a dignified figure as he joined the royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the Trooping the Colour ceremony. But, across the Atlantic, a very different picture is being painted of the future king in a controversial new off-Broadway play with a gasp-inducing title: Prince Faggot. Canadian writer Jordan Tannahill 's highly speculative royal romp, which this week premiered at Playwrights Horizons, is set in 2032 and sees 18-year-old Oxford student Prince George, nicknamed 'Tips' (played by British actor John McCrea), return home to introduce his Indian boyfriend Dev (Mihir Kumar) to the Prince and Princess of Wales (African-American actor K. Todd Freeman and transgender actress Rachel Crowl). Dev is nervous, quipping that George's parents might fear 'We've got another Meghan'; Prince Andrew also gets a name-check in the context of the royal family's fraught history. Tannahill's juicy drama then envisions the tabloid feeding frenzy that follows their relationship going public (including fury from Piers Morgan), and internet comments such as 'Glad someone's adding some spice to that Yorkshire pudding'. Audiences at Prince Faggot must place their phones in lockable Yondr pouches to prevent anyone taking pictures or videos. The reason for that soon becomes apparent: McCrea and Kumar appear naked during graphic sex scenes. They experiment with poppers, acid and S&M fetish: Prince George appears in bondage and shares a kinky fantasy of being walked like a puppy. Prince George also imagines communing with the ghosts of former allegedly gay monarchs: Edward II, Queen Anne, James I, and Richard the Lionheart. Tannahill wraps in postcolonial angst too, with Dev fretting: 'Getting f---ed by the Prince of England? My ancestors would never forgive me.' N'yome Allure Stewart plays a feisty Princess Charlotte (Prince Louis doesn't appear). When her father, concerned about Prince George's explosive fling, says 'Our job is to serve, not to make spectacles of ourselves', she shoots back that they already make a spectacle 'with capes and crowns and motorcades'. Tannahill, an experimental, gay writer, frequently has his 'queer and trans' cast break the fourth wall, refracting their own life experiences through this provocative premise. Stewart talks about earning her version of a royal title at a New York drag ball, and there is discussion around those in power versus marginalised communities. Earnest explorations aside, this is the latest example of a peculiarly pervasive trend: Americans turning our royal family into an explicitly gay soap opera. The jumping-off point for the play is the viral 2017 photograph of the real four-year-old Prince George visiting a military helicopter in Hamburg. The young prince gasped in delight when he spied the chopper and struck a dramatic pose with his hands clasped to his face. Addressing the Prince Faggot audience, actor Mihir Kumar compares the image to a fey photo of himself as a boy, stating: 'We know one of our own when we see one because we ourselves were once queer children.' Internet commentators were certainly gripped by the 'Sassy Prince George' phenomenon. Posts on Twitter (now X) included: 'Prince George is already a bigger gay icon to me than Boy George', 'Do we have our first openly gay royal?', and 'Guys what if Prince George is gay and it causes a constitutional crisis?'. American writer Gary Janetti, who worked on TV shows like Will & Grace and Family Guy, went viral with his spoof Instagram posts imagining Prince George delivering catty zingers to his family – especially Meghan Markle. In one post, 'George' responds to a news story about Meghan doing her make-up in the back of an Uber by sneering 'Does she get dressed in the back of an Uber, too? Because that would explain a lot.' Janetti's work grew so popular that HBO turned it into an animated sitcom called The Prince in 2021, starring Orlando Bloom, Alan Cumming, Sophie Turner and Dan Stevens. Two years later, streamer Amazon Prime Video premiered the film adaptation of non-binary author Casey McQuiston's steamy novel Red, White & Royal Blue, about a gay romance between a closeted British prince and the son of the female President of the United States. Nicholas Galitzine starred as Prince Henry, who bears a physical resemblance to Prince William, but, as the rebellious 'spare' in a contentious relationship, is more obviously inspired by Prince Harry. Perhaps it's the Montecito exile who has turbo-charged this American fascination with royal figures who both benefit from and chafe against their hereditary privilege. Putting a queer spin on our princes allows these writers to indulge in the fantasy of regal luxury – a sort of real-life Disney fairy tale, or a more refined version of their celebrity culture – while also rebelling against it by introducing a transgressive element, and comparing the stuffy Brits unfavourably with the enlightened Americans. In Red, White & Royal Blue, Prince Henry's lover Alex accuses him of being a conformist snob, and the prince eventually confesses that he feels trapped by tradition. Indeed, the disapproving King, Henry's grandfather (played by Stephen Fry), thunders: 'The nation simply will not accept a prince who is homosexual.' In contrast, Uma Thurman's liberal President warmly welcomes her son's coming out, cheerily asking: 'So are you gay? Bi? Fluid? Pan? Queer?', and offering to help him get on the HIV-prevention drug Truvada. Amazon also gifted viewers the bizarre historical fantasy series My Lady Jane in 2024, featuring a gay King Edward VI, plus characters who turn into animals and are 'othered' by society, in another clunky marginalisation metaphor. This trend arguably reached its apotheosis with the horrifically kitsch musical Diana, about the late Princess of Wales, which (dis)graced Broadway in 2021. Although none of the characters were gay, it is unarguably camp trash. Are all of these depictions a grave insult to the institution? Not really. When the material is this navel-gazing, fluffy or downright dumb, it's hard to take it seriously. If anything, it's an odd compliment: a sign that the Americans still can't get enough of our royals, even if they have to view them through a fictionalised, flamboyantly queer modern lens to justify their enduring obsession.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Lip reader reveals Queen Camilla's panicked conversation with close companion Lady Sarah Keswick at Royal Ascot - and the King's cheeky quip
A lip reader has revealed the Queen's panicked conversation with her close companion Lady Sarah Keswick during day one of Royal Ascot on Tuesday. Camilla, 77, and King Charles, 76, enjoyed a day at the races as they led the traditional carriage procession at the opening of the five-day festival. The royal procession is celebrating its 200th anniversary, a tradition begun during the reign of George IV in 1825 when the monarch was accompanied by the Duke of Wellington. The King and Queen rode in the first carriage with Prince Faisal, a member of the Saudi royal family, and Lady Sarah, one of Camilla's official companions. But the monarch's wife faced a panicked moment when she first arrived at the Berkshire racecourse, according to lip reader Nicola Hickling. Dressed in all their finery, Camilla and Lady Sarah had to battle to keep their glamorous hats in place due to strong winds, apparently resulting in some worried remarks from the Queen. Speaking on behalf of Slingo, Nicola claimed that Camilla turned to Lady Sarah and said: 'Oh my goodness, if that wind blows any stronger, my hat will blow away!' She later debates letting go of her accessory to perform a quick wave to the crowd, but is said to think better of it. 'A quick wave and back to my hat, should I let go? I can't,' Camilla said, according to the lip reader. Earlier in the ride, Charles joked that it's his third time in a carriage this week, referring to Trooping the Colour over the weekend, claimed Nicola. The lip reader said that the King jokingly explained: 'This is the third time I've been in a carriage this week. I mean, given that though, there's lots of room.' As the wind picked up, Charles then apparently turned to Prince Faisal and said: 'Didn't she get the control on it?' But as the carriage rounded the bend, both Camilla and Charles gave a collective 'oooh,' reacting to the gust. Prince Faisal then laughed, asking: 'Are you frightened that your hat will blow off?' Camilla added: 'This wind is causing a frenzy,' according to Nicola. Charles and Camilla hosted guests in the royal box on the first day of Royal Ascot including the monarch's nephew Peter Phillips and his partner, NHS nurse Harriet Sperling. She made an appearance for the first time in the carriage procession the royal family make onto the famous Berkshire racecourse to signal the start of the day. King Charles, Queen Camilla, Lady Sarah Keswick and Saudi Arabia's Prince Faisal bin Salman Al Saud during the royal procession Behind the King and Queen travelled the Princess Royal with Camilla's sister Annabel Elliot and the Duke and Duchess of Wellington and they were followed by a coach carrying Anne's son Peter Phillips and his girlfriend. Other royals spotted among the crowds included Princess Beatrice and her mother Sarah, Duchess of York and Zara and Mike Tindall. The King and his wife have continued Queen Elizabeth II's close association with the Berkshire race meet but they had no luck with the sport of Kings when their horse Reaching High was well beaten in the Ascot Stakes. The late Queen was a passionate owner and breeder of thoroughbreds and had more than 20 Royal Ascot winners during her 70-year reign. Charles and Camilla have taken on her stable of horses and enjoyed their first Royal Ascot winner in 2023 when their horse Desert Hero triumphed in the King George V Stakes. Today's racing, meanwhile, will feature the The Prince of Wales's Stakes as one of its highlights. First run at Royal Ascot in 1862, the race, named after the son of Queen Victoria (later to become King Edward VII), is now worth £1million in prize money and is one of the features of the week. Auguste Rodin produced a career best performance to win last year's Prince of Wales's Stakes, highlighting the perfect blend of speed and stamina needed to win a race of this magnitude. Three horses have won this race on two occasions, Connaught, (1969, 1970) Mtoto (1987, 1988) and Muhtarram (1994, 1995). Older horses tend to struggle in this race, with only two six-year-old horses winning since 1995: Muhtarram (1995) and So You Think (2012). Elsewhere, The Queen Mary Stakes, The Queen's Vase and The Duke of Cambridge Stakes provide a trio of Group 2 races to savour before the Royal Hunt Cup, The Windsor Castle Stakes and the Kensington Palace Stakes conclude the second day of racing. Over £10 million in prize money is awarded to the winners and placed horses across the week. The minimum value for each race is £110,000 and every Group 1 contest will be rewarded with at least £650,000.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Swiss sanctuary for Freebie Fergie: EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE
Excluded from the Garter parade, Prince Andrew's public banishment continued yesterday with his non-appearance at Royal Ascot. At least the disgraced Duke was invited to the Windsor Castle lunch before the King, Queen and other royals took part in the carriage procession to the nearby course. My source whispers that Andrew is sometimes on hand to help entertain guests, especially on days when other royals are thin on the ground, although dressed in his best bib and tucker he isn't allowed to join them on the course. At least he is spared the washing up. Compare and contrast Donald Trump's £33million Washington military parade with the £60,000 estimated cost of the Trooping the Colour, the King's birthday parade, on the same day. The bill included 'crown feeding' (rations for troops and horses), temporary stables and transport hire. But not security. Nor the funds from royal regiment colonels to allow soldiers to quench their thirsts. Pity the Coldstream Guards, who were the stars of this year's Trooping. They haven't had a royal colonel since Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, passed away in 1850. The Duchess of York, pictured, was afforded three pages in a broadsheet newspaper yesterday to spout about the scars inflicted by a traumatic childhood and life in the public eye. 'All of this inspired my recent visit to Paracelsus Recovery in Zurich,' she wrote. 'Which kindly hosted me as a guest.' Unless you're Freebie Fergie, the clinic charges around £100,000 for a week's treatment. The Who's Pete Townshend is resigned to never replicating bandmate Roger Daltrey's Birthday Honours List gong. Having received a police caution in 2003 for accessing child abuse images while researching, Pete spent five years on the sex offenders register. He reckons: 'The only thing that must be frustrating for those people who distribute gongs up in London, they probably want to give me a knighthood but they can't.' Comic Harry Hill takes issue with Grayson Perry for accepting a knighthood, telling a podcast: 'I tackled Grayson, 'cos when Wordsworth accepted the Poet Laureate post, Robert Browning wrote a poem about it and it starts, "For a handful of silver he left us, just for a ribbon to stick on his coat". In Grayson's case, was it a dress?'
News.com.au
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Royal photos taken just years apart show sad new reality
COMMENT There have been many moments that have come close to making and breaking the British monarchy, generally involving bloody battlefields,, the Tower of London, Spanish brides shipped over special-like, Marys (Tudor, of Scots) and blowing $80 million on a pan-Asian themed 'pleasure palace'. (George IV really knew his silk wallpaper.) One poor choice, made by King Charles back when he was just the Prince of Wales in 2012 and the world's poshest biscuit maker, was unmistakeable over the weekend. Every June the sovereign gets their official birthday parade, Trooping the Colour, which clogs the more touristy bits of St James's and this year, despite the usual circus of horse flesh and red coated, stiff-spined military sorts clomping down The Mall in regimental perfection, it had the whiff of the dud. Not even Kate, The Princess of Wales turning up in a mermaid-core aquamarine coat so bright it could dazzle a seeing eye dog, could quite save the event from having the zip and fizz of a perfunctory birthday Sara Lee cake being shared in a break room. The reason - back in June 2012 Charles wheeled out his vision for a slimmed down version of the royal family for the first time and the after-effects of that captain's call were unmissable at this year's Trooping. Sure, this year, as usual, we got ponies and a nice bit of gold braid but the remaining working members of the royal family allowed to take their place on the Palace balcony looked more like a Home Counties golf club board on their way to a wake than the exciting future of a multi-billion dollar institution. We could beat around a nicely trimmed yew bush or we could be blunt. The royal family is, overall, a tired, greying, much reduced outfit. Aside from Charles and his good lady Queen, Camila, who had luckily remembered to take her wellies off under her Anna Valentine coat dress, and Prince William and Kate and their adorable three children, there were only seven other official working HRHs allowed out on the balcony, the majority of whom are over the age of 75-years-old. Can even the most ardent of 'I've got all the commemorative teaspoons' monarchists tell the difference between the Duke of Kent (89-years-old and 42nd in line to the throne) and the Duke of Gloucester (80-years-old and 32nd in line to the throne)? How many people can tell me who Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence is? Aerial shots of this year's Trooping suggest I am not alone in feeling this way, with the 2025 crowd size, based on a bit of highly scientific eyeballing, appearing to be smaller than previously. For some reason the public was not willing to stand around for an age to see a few 80-something dukes who've never had to buy their own white sliced or fill out a job application stand on a balcony. Weird. The decision Charles made in 2012 was this: Fearing this image of a balcony mob scene would make the royal family look like a bloated, grasping lot and put the British people off the concept of a hereditary monarchy, he decided to limit who was allowed out for big events and restricting working royal roles to only those closest to the throne. Younger Windsor cousins, second cousins, third cousins and a blood princess here and there suddenly were surplus to needs. His Majesty wanted the royal family to be represented by a trim, toned, lean working cadre who would make the Crown Inc look like good value for money and not like a bunch of old Etonians scrounging off the Windsor teat. Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie were reportedly barred from ever doing full-time royal duties and sent off to polish their LinkedIn pages. Charles' idea for a slimmed down royal family is now looking like a disastrous move and this year's balcony moment was a shadow of how things once were. Of the late Queen's eight grandchildren, William is the only one who is allowed to undertake official royal duties. A last hurrah came in 2019 when the late Queen permitted, what would be for the final time, more than 35 Windsors tromping out onto the balcony in a big, colourful gaggle. Waving space was at a premium and playing spot-the-crammed-in-minor earls was the pub drinking game you never knew you needed. Now there is so much room on the Palace balcony they could invest in individual sun loungers with optional shade coverings and still fit in an esky. What Charles' slimmed down plan did not factor in was the downfall of the spares. The first domino fell in November 2019 when Prince Andrew, The Duke of York went on Newsnight to defend holidaying with a convicted child sex offender and to give Pizza Express Woking untold millions in free publicity. Still, Andrew was hardly that much of a loss, unless you were a) an Kazakh magnate looking to curry favour in London, b) an alleged Chinese spy, or c) the Four Seasons Bahrain's brand manager who just lost their number one customer. What proved truly devastating was when, two months later in January 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced they were done with toeing lines, smiling on cue and making do with a five-bedder horribly lacking in saunas and proximity to an Erehwon. Charles' slimmed down model relied on both William and Harry rolling up their off-the-rack sleeves and mucking in to do royal duties alongside their perpetually-game-and-cheery wives. In the space of that one January 2020 Instagram post, the future of Crown Inc went from relatively robust to worryingly malnourished. Back in 2019 when that last mass group balcony photo was taken, with Meghan still having that new duchess smell, there was genuine sizzle about the royal family. The addition of a biracial, divorced American go-getter who could wear the hell out of a pair of jeans was the shot in the arm the Palace never knew they needed so badly. The Sussxes made royalty seem relevant, interesting and contemporary in a way that a 1001 Hello covers and tireless visits to Bognor Regis never would. Imagine how this year's Palace balcony scene could have looked if the Great Megxiting had somehow been prevented. Harry, grinning up a storm and corralling his young children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, Meghan doing superlative, stunning hat work. The combination of the Sussexes and the Waleses would have made the future of the royal family seem young, exciting, glamorous. Instead, what the photos of this year's Trooping the Colour spell out is that the loss of the duke and duchess is not something the Palace can or will recover from soon. (To a lesser degree, the permanent barring Beatrice and Eugenie from ever being full-time working members of the royal family is also looking short-sighted.) What the King thought he was doing was future-proofing the crown; instead the images from Trooping make it look like he could have accidentally hobbled it. In ten years, how many members of the royal family will be left to take the place on the Palace balcony? And how many people will bother to get off the sofa to come and watch? Kate and William and their kids were always going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting to keep the monarchy going - now the effort and struggle is going to be positively Herculean.
