What’s the first thing you think of when you think about the British? One major cultural stereotype that is true (more or less) is that the British are really big on presenting a “stiff upper lip” to the rest of the world. That is, however the person may be feeling, they try to keep those emotions buried very deep inside of themselves.
The Royal Family represents all of England, and they are expected to embody the core values of their countrymen. Because of this, you might expect the average royal to be a master of the stiff upper lip. You’d be wrong, though, as royals often lose their temper in the most explosive ways, even when the whole world is watching.
Don’t believe it? Keep reading to discover the craziest times that members of the Royal Family completely lost their temper!
Queen Elizabeth put Prince William in his place
The late, great Queen Elizabeth is basically the last royal that you might imagine losing her cool. However, that’s exactly what happened when Prince William was very young and was riding a quad bike with his cousin, Peter Phillips. They were riding on the Queen’s prize Balmoral lawn, but that wasn’t what made her so angry. Instead, it was the fact that William nearly got another member of his family killed!
Prince William’s off-road adventures ended up causing another cousin, Zara Phillips (whom you may better know as Zara Tindall), to drive her go-kart into a lamp post. That would have been bad enough, but the impact caused the lamp post to fall down, nearly crushing the young girl. In an interview from a few years ago, William recalled what happened next: “I remember my grandmother being the first person out at Balmoral, ah, running across the lawn in her kilt…She came charging over and gave us the most almighty b*****ing.”
RELATED: Moments From Queen Elizabeth II’s Funeral We’ll Be Talking About For Years
Prince Harry made the paparazzi bleed
These days, Prince Harry mostly makes headlines due to his antics with Meghan Markle, including moving to America and writing a memoir filled with juicy details about his famous family. As a younger man, though, Harry was more of a party boy, and he wasn’t afraid to let his temper flare. Unfortunately, that’s a lesson that a member of the paparazzi had to find out the hard way!
Back in 2004, Harry was surrounded by paparazzi as he was leaving a London nightclub in the wee hours. Some type of scuffle broke out, and it left a photographer named Chris Uncle with a bloody lip. Accounts of what happened that night vary: according to the Royal Family, Harry was just trying to get into his car, and when he pushed the cameras away, one of them hit Uncle in the face. Uncle, meanwhile, maintains that the young prince was already in the car and then leapt out in a rage, shoving the camera into the photographer’s face.
It’s always hard to judge who is right in this kind of “he said/she said” situation. But judging from Harry’s other activities as a young man (including wearing a swastika as part of a Halloween costume and getting busted playing a game of strip billiards), we wouldn’t be surprised if he lost his temper!
Kate Middleton goes off on coworkers after a prank
Kate Middleton’s life completely changed when she married Prince William and joined the most famous family in the world. Before that, though, a young Kate had to work her own jobs, and she was generally beloved by her coworkers. However, some fellow employees of Southampton’s Ocean Village Marina probably didn’t love Kate…at least, after their prank made her freak out!
At the time, Kate had several duties at the Marina, including giving safety demonstrations to her customers. One day, her coworkers rigged a lifejacket so that when Kate pulled it, a bunch of condoms fell out. This reportedly made the future royal red-faced with embarrassment, and she was livid at being made the butt of the joke. Nonetheless, she generally kept her cool in front of the customers and never retaliated against her coworkers, which means she was able to do something even King Charles has trouble doing: keeping her anger in check!
RELATED: Kate Middleton’s Exes: What Are They Now?
King Charles gets downright catty about a reporter’s question
King Charles, like Queen Elizabeth before him, isn’t prone to emotional outbursts. Nonetheless, we’ve seen times when the monarch loses his temper, like when he was signing a document in Northern Ireland’s Hillsborough Castle and dealing with a leaking pen. At the time, he got visibly angry, calling it a “bloody thing” and that the leak happened “every stinking time” he tried to use it.
However, that pales in comparison to a much earlier incident from 2005. It started when a young Prince William (who was visiting the Klosters ski resort in the Swiss Alps with his brother and father) told BBC reporter Nicholas Witchell that he was looking forward to Charles marrying Camilla Parker-Bowles. When the reporter then asked if Charles’ sons were looking forward to the upcoming nuptials, the future King got annoyed enough to blurt out, “It’s a very nice thought, so glad you’ve heard of it.”
That was likely Charles’ attempt to stay just this side of polite. But while Witchell was still in earshot, the royal could be heard making Prince Harry laugh with his mean-spirited comments: “Bloody people. I can’t bear that man. He’s so awful. He really is.” Ouch!