Why Queen Camilla Was Excluded From Her Family's Group Chat

Like any devoted grandmother, Queen Camilla loves to spend time with and dote on her grandchildren. Thanks to Tom Parker Bowles and Laura Lopes, her two children with ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles, the queen consort has five grandkids in total (she's also a step-grandmother to Prince William's three kids and Prince Harry's two children — though, naturally, Camilla has a very different relationship with William than she does with Harry). "I just love them all to bits. Obviously, I am being called on for more and more babysitting duties, but it's wonderful," Camilla gushed to the Daily Mail in 2009.

However, Camilla's former duties as the Duchess of Cornwall and her current responsibilities as queen consort unfortunately meant that she wasn't there for every single one of her grandchildren's many milestones and likely won't be for the foreseeable future either. Since the royal couple's successful nine-day tour of Australia and Samoa, which took place from October 18-26, 2024, proved that King Charles III was recovering well amid his cancer treatment, the British monarch and his longtime wife have decided to ramp up their overseas visits again, according to a statement from Buckingham Palace.

For such long trips, joining the family group chat would give Queen Camilla a convenient method of getting real-time updates from her children and grandchildren and vice versa. But her son Tom shared that unfortunately, his mother couldn't be part of their family WhatsApp group. Apparently, the cellphone that Camilla uses is the type of old-school device that can't support messaging apps. "We do [have a family WhatsApp group] — my children, my sister and cousins," Tom confirmed to Woman & Home (via People). "But my mum still uses an old-fashioned Nokia telephone. [...] I think it's for security."

It's not just updates from the Parker Bowles side of the family that Queen Camilla misses — she's not in the royal WhatsApp group chat either. In 2018, Mike Tindall, the husband of Princess Anne's daughter Zara Tindall, revealed in an interview with The Mirror that certain members of the royal family — specifically the younger generation — created group chats to discuss things like weddings, pregnancies, and just general social gatherings. "Me, my brother, and then a few of Zara's side like her brother Pete and the cousins are on WhatsApp groups," Mike said. "I wouldn't say we're cutting edge, but it's just easier." 

Still, this doesn't mean that the queen consort has no way of bonding with her adult children and five beloved grandchildren — namely, Lola Parker Bowles, Eliza Lopes, Freddy Parker Bowles, and twins Louis and Gus Lopes — when they're apart. During a 2023 interview with British Vogue, Camilla shared the surprisingly relatable way that she connects with one of her grandkids in particular: By playing games online together.

As Camilla proudly noted, "I do 'Wordle' every day with my granddaughter. She'll text me to say, 'I've done it in three', and I say, 'Sorry, I've done it in two today.' It's very satisfactory when it tells you how brilliant you are." The queen consort and her grandchildren chat via text messages whenever they can too. "It's very nice getting a text," Camilla added. "We learn from very young people and they learn from us, too. That's the way it's always been."