According to Prince Charles’s biographer Penny Junor, Camilla “offered to leave immediately” – but he decided it was time the pair got to know each other.
Sources claim Charles led his partner off to William’s quarters, and left them alone to talk. Penny says that when Camilla re-emerged, she breathlessly told staff, “I need a gin and tonic.”
In the decades since, William and Camilla have reached an uneasy truce. “They’ll never be best friends but their relationship warmed when Camilla was helpful during his own wife’s transition from commoner to princess,” an insider says.
According to New Idea, “After a Camilla and Charles’ relationship came to a light, it received a black lash from the general public. This love tale was rehashed and show the couple in a negative light in the most recent season of The Crown.
During this time, Camilla was often labelled Prince William and Prince Harry’s “wicked stepmother.”
“I was living in London during those years and the backlash against Camilla was awful she was virtually a prisoner in her own home,” royal commentator Angela Mollard previously recalled to New Idea Royals.
“I remember at one stage she lived in the west of England and she was in the local supermarket car park and someone pelted her with bread rolls.”