BBC’s retiring royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell says he was ‘shocked’ when King Charles called him ‘awful’ after he asked about his upcoming wedding to Camilla in infamous 2005 interview
The BBC’s Nicholas Witchell has admitted he was ‘shocked’ when King Charles called him ‘awful’ during a now-infamous TV interview.
The veteran royal correspondent, who is retiring next year, was speaking to the then Prince of Wales during a photoshoot with his sons Prince William and Prince Harry in 2005.
The trio were on a skiing holiday in the Swiss Alps just eight days before Charles was due to marry Queen Camilla.
Charles was angered when Witchell asked him how he was feeling about his wedding, prompting the monarch to say under his breath: ‘Bloody people. I can’t bear that man. I mean, he is so awful, he really is.’
Mr Witchell, 70, said in an interview at the weekend that his question went ‘horribly wrong’, adding: ‘I was shocked, but to be perfectly honest, we all mutter under our breath, don’t we?’
The BBC ‘s Nicholas Witchell has admitted he was ‘shocked’ when King Charles called him ‘awful’ during a now-infamous TV interview
The journalist, who has covered the royal family since 1998, revealed last week that he will retire next year.
He joined the broadcaster as a graduate news trainee in 1976.
King Charles had been on holiday at Klosters resort when he hit out at Mr Witchell, who asked him: ‘Can I ask how you and Princes William and Harry are feeling at the prospect of the marriage?’.
Speaking to The Telegraph, the journalist said he had hoped with his question to get Prince Harry and William to ‘endorse the wedding’.
‘But it just went horribly wrong,’ he said.
‘People weren’t in the best of moods that morning. It sounds the most inane and pathetic question really: “How do you feel about the wedding?'”
‘But if you sort of unpack that, as the then Prince of Wales immediately did … I could see that his face was somewhat changing colour.’
King Charles with his arms around Prince William and Prince Harry during the Royal Family’s ski break in the region at Klosters on March 31, 2005
Charles initially interrupted before Mr Witchell had finished his question, saying: ‘You’ve heard of it have you?’
William politely said: ‘Very happy, very pleased. It will be a good day.’
Before embarking on his rant, Charles said again: ‘I’m very glad you’ve heard of it anyway.’
Aides suggested that Charles was annoyed about William and Kate Middleton – then just the prince’s girlfriend – being photographed the previous day.
Paddy Harverson, Charles’s press sectary at the time, said: ‘We recognise that we cannot stop photographers taking these pictures, but we hope every year that they will respect the privacy of the family and friends and their need to have a private holiday.’
In 2005, Prince Charles – as he was then – famously insulted the BBC’s royal correspondent, Nicholas Witchell
Mr Harverson later said: ‘Nicholas was in the firing line when the prince was expressing his general frustration at the paparazzi and it boiled over at the first person to ask a question,’ he said.
‘It wasn’t personal. He does regret saying it. He really didn’t mean to take it out on Nicholas.’
Mr Witchell said at the weekend that Charles did not apologise but he had not expected him to.
He said ‘for several years’ there was ‘no contact’ between the pair before they had a ‘rapprochement’ in Saudi Arabia.
Mr Witchell broadcast the confirmed news of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales on August 31, 1997 and provided live radio commentary from outside Westminster Abbey at her funeral.
The 70-year-old first joined the BBC after finishing a law degree at Leeds University, later becoming a BBC reporter in Northern Ireland in 1979, which included covering the assassination of Earl Mountbatten and the IRA hunger strikes.
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