After Meeting a Teenage Prince William for the First Time, Then Camilla Parker-Bowles Quipped “I Need a Gin and Tonic,” Royal Author Writes

As Marie Claire previously reported, Queen Camilla and Prince William have bonded this year over the shared devastating experience of both of them watching their spouses battle cancer—a newfound closeness forged through fire. After years of what outlets have referred to as “a strained relationship,” the stepmother and stepson have a genuine warmth between them and have gotten far closer in recent months, with former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond telling OK earlier this year that they have formed an “unlikely” bond through the firestorm.

“Recent events have obviously brought William and Camilla much closer,” Bond said at the time. “They have been left, almost literally, nursing the Crown while the King and the Princess recover. Their teams will be working more closely to coordinate diaries and cover the engagements that have been planned, and Camilla and William are bound to have been in much closer regular contact.” (Bond’s comments came before the King returned to public-facing royal duties on April 30; the Princess of Wales still largely remains away from front-facing public duty, though she did make two major appearances this summer at June’s Trooping the Colour and Wimbledon earlier this week.)

“Apart from the business side of things, I’m sure they will have been an emotional help to one another as well,” Bond added. “Both will have been so worried about these unexpected health issues, and I imagine they will have shared their concerns.”

When William was a young boy, Camilla Parker-Bowles was famously the other woman in the marriage of his parents, then Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Diana famously opened up to her eldest son about her marital problems, and William often shouldered the burden of his mother’s unhappiness. Charles and Diana eventually separated in 1992, when William was 10, and divorced when he was 14 in 1996; Diana died just one year later, on August 31, 1997.

Though William had known about Camilla for years, they finally met after William unexpectedly told Charles that he would be returning home to London from Eton for the weekend—which royal author Penny Junor wrote in her book Queen Consort: The Life of Queen Camilla caught Charles off guard. Camilla was staying with Charles while both William and Prince Harry were away at school, and Junor writes that Camilla offered to leave—but that Charles insisted she stay, dismissing her departure as “ridiculous,” per The Mirror . “Instead, he called William to let him know Camilla would be there when he got back,” the outlet writes.

With William due back at 7 p.m. that evening, Camilla was “decidedly anxious” about the meeting—a feeling that fully intensified when William arrived a full four hours early , Junor writes.

Charles broke the news to Camilla with a simple “he’s here,” suggesting they “just get on with it.” Camilla and William were then left alone for half an hour to get to know each other, after which Camilla—ever humorous—quipped, simply but profoundly, “I need a gin and tonic.”

But Camilla was just kidding—the introduction to William was successful, Junor writes, with the young prince being described as “friendly,” and with Camilla happy to move at his pace. Junor writes that Camilla was aware it would take time for William and Harry to get used to her, and in those early years, Camilla “met William for lunch and occasionally dropped by York House when he was there.” (William and Harry moved to York House with their father in 1997, The Mirror reports.)

Eventually, the next step was for William and Harry to be seen publicly with Camilla, although public relations expert Mark Bolland admitted it was “something awkward” initially: “It was difficult for them,” he told Junor. “It was a natural thing. You want your mum [Diana], you don’t want her [Camilla]—and she had her own family. To be fair to Camilla, she never tried to be mummy, but she was the ‘other woman,’ and she was there taking daddy’s time.” Charles and Camilla eventually married on April 9, 2005, and have been married for 19 years today.

“As an adolescent, William took his time to accept Camilla as ‘the other woman’ in his father’s life,” Bond said. “His feelings towards her were complicated, having witnessed his mother’s unhappiness in marriage. But maturity brought with it the realization that Camilla makes his father extremely happy—and the Prince [William] knows now that she is the love of his life.”