Five Rumors About Queen Camilla We Couldn't Ignore

Throughout her long association with the royal family, Queen Camilla has been portrayed in the media and popular imagination in a variety of ways. Given the wild nature of some of the headlines about her, it's sometimes been hard to know what to think. "Before she married Charles, no one really knew Camilla," royal author Penny Junor explained to Vanity Fair. "They only knew that Diana had called her a Rottweiler."

While the press initially piled the insults onto Camilla's character, the tide of media coverage slowly turned positive. Some people have asserted that this was a deliberate effort conducted by palace staff. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, even took things further by asserting Camilla took an active role in interacting with the media. In a "60 Minutes" interview, Harry described Camilla as "dangerous." "There was open willingness on both sides to trade of information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being Queen consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street because of that," Harry explained. However, Julian Payne, Camilla's former communications secretary, dismissed the idea, claiming that Camilla took a completely hand-off approach, preferring to let opinions evolve naturally. 

Over the last 30 years, perception of Camilla has shifted to become overwhelmingly positive. Even so, some old stories from Camilla's past persist. From conflated tales about Camilla's habits, accounts of exaggerated public reactions, to stories about her relationships with other royals, certain rumors about the queen have stood out.

Over the years, Queen Camilla became rumored to have hard-partying habits. Speaking to The Times in 2024, her son, Tom Parker Bowles, broached the topic, asking his interviewer, Polly Vernon, "You know she has that reputation of drinking gin and smoking?" Parker Bowles went on to debunk the rumor, stating, "Never drunk a glass of gin in her life. Doesn't smoke." Vernon hypothesized that this notion may have originated in from fictional caricatures of the queen on TV.

However, royal biographer Angela Levin lent credence to this idea when she discussed Camilla's young adult years in the documentary "Queen Camilla: The Wicked Stepmother." "Incredibly heavy smoker, one after the other. That's sort of left her with a hoarse voice, and she would drink quite a lot," Levin explained (via Gloucestershire Live). Royal author Brian Hoey noted in "Not in Front of the Corgis" that Camilla kept a stockpile of cigarettes throughout the house, making it convenient for her to smoke whenever and wherever she wanted.      

Camilla herself has touted her enthusiasm for red wine. "My father was in the wine business, so I was brought up as a child drinking wine and water rather like the French," Camilla informed the U.K. Vineyards Association (via Daily Mail). These days, however, Parker Bowles notes that his mom drinks in moderation. As for smoking, Camilla reportedly quit when she was 53. In November 2024, she affirmed that old habit remained in her past, remarking (via The Mirror), "I quit 20 years ago." 

King Charles and Queen Camilla couldn't hide their affair from Princess Diana, and eventually, they couldn't hide it from the rest of the word, either. In January 1993, Charles and Camilla's embarrassing "Tampongate" conversation made global news. Given Diana's overwhelming popularity with the public, Camilla found herself receiving a ton of animosity. While Charles' popularity took a hit as people reacted to his infidelity, it was rumored that Camilla actually got hit –- with bread rolls. According to the tale, Camilla was grocery shopping when some individuals expressed their anger by throwing rolls at her.

While Camilla has debunked this rumor, the story has continued to pop up. For one thing, it conjures up a bizarre image, and beyond that, there's an intriguing theory on how the story originated. Some believe a British tabloid was involved. Writing in The Sun, royal expert Emily Andrews claimed, "Although it was an actress posing for a stunt that was pelted with bread rolls in Waitrose, everyone still thinks it was Camilla."

Fortunately, the queen was able to weather the negativity with fortitude. "I was scrutinized for such a long time that you just have to find a way to live with it," she explained the British Vogue in July 2022. In addition, Camilla was fortunate to have the support of her family. After the news of his mom's affair became public, Tom Parker Bowles tuned out the media's interpretations. "I don't think I've ever listened to it," he informed The Times in 2014.

After several years together, William and Catherine, Prince and Princess of Wales, broke up in 2007. At the time, this development felt jarring to the public, especially since there had been longstanding engagement rumors. To complicate matters further, Queen Camilla became part of the gossip, with claims that she was partly responsible. "Camilla never really felt that Kate Middleton as an individual and the Middleton family as a whole were going to be worthy of entering into the Royal Family," royal author Christopher Anderson asserted to The Daily Beast in 2016. "I was told at the time of the breakup . . . Camilla basically whispered in Charles's ear that it was really time to make — to force — William to make a decision one way or the other." While it's unknown if this incident actually happened, Camilla was said to have already experienced something similar in her own relationship past. Purportedly, her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, was catalyzed to propose to Camilla as a direct result of parental involvement on both sides.

Rumors aside, William and Kate had reportedly been having some relationship difficulties at the time, and they had been spending time apart as they wrestled with big life decisions. According to author Katie Nicholl, William solicited advice from King Charles and Queen Elizabeth. "William had been having second thoughts," Nicholl wrote in Vanity Fair in 2010. "Both advised him not to hurry into anything."

In addition to disclosing the rumor about Queen Camilla meddling in William And Catherine, Prince and Princess of Wales' relationship, author Christopher Andersen has claimed that Camilla's jealous of Kate and that a power struggle exists between them. "Tensions mounted as the two queens-in-waiting protected the interests of their kings," Andersen writes an excerpt from "Game of Crowns" (via The Sun), "and their competing courts vied for the love of the people and the power that comes with it."

This idea of a struggle for royal influence crept up again in the wake of King Charles' cancer diagnosis, with Camilla being rumored to feel disappointed at the prospect of losing her current royal role. "Her whole life, she has always wanted to be queen, so she doesn't want to let it go so fast," an insider explained to Us Weekly. When William does become king, Camilla will experience numerous changes, and once of those will be that Kate will take on the role of queen. Speaking of Camilla and Kate's relationship, this individual added grist to the rumor mill, claiming, "They've always had a tense relationship."

However, there appears to be a camaraderie between the two women. In 2022, when Camilla was on the cover of Country Life magazine, she specifically wanted Kate to photograph her. "It was just done in the garden with a lot of laughs, and it was a lovely way of doing it," Camilla happily explained to ITV.

Queen Camilla and her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, had two children: Tom Parker Bowles and Laura Lopes. Since her marriage to King Charles, Camilla has two stepsons, William, Prince of Wales, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. However, in 2012, Simon Charles Dorante-Day contacted Charles and Camilla and asserted that he's their biological child. Dorante-Day had a long list of reasons for his claim, including his adoptive grandmother's conviction that it was true. He was born in 1966 and contended that the couple had a brief romance at the time. However, a multitude of other sources cite 1970 as the year when Charles and Camilla first got together. Dorante-Day contested this idea on Facebook, when he posted a screenshot of a 1980 article in a Canadian newspaper that claimed the royal couple had known each other as teens.

Dorante-Day went public with his claims in 2020. Two years later, he posted photos on social media, comparing himself at various life stages to Charles, Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth, and Camilla. When Dorante-Day didn't hear back from Charles and Camilla, he contacted Elizabeth, and the late queen also declined to reply.

By October 2024, Dorante-Day's actions generated security concerns when Charles and Camilla were about to go on a royal tour to Australia, where he lives. Dorante-Day's request for DNA proof remains answered. Instead, he's continued to cite photo resemblances in social media posts as this rumor persists.