Back-to-school nervousness is common in children, even, or perhaps especially, if you’re heir to the British throne. Princess Diana deployed a special trick to soothe her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry: playing Tina Turner at full volume.
Oh, yes. Today, in an interview for Apple Fitness’s Time to Walk series, William revealed that his mother would blast Turner’s “The Best” while driving him and Harry back to boarding school. Then, she’d start belting out the lyrics. “My mother, she’d be driving along singing at the top of her voice,” he said. Diana would even drag their security team into it. “We’d even get the policeman in the car; he’d occasionally be singing along as well. We’d be singing and listening to the music right the way up to the gates at school where they dropped you off.” Emotion was palpable in William’s voice as he spoke of the memory.
It’s just the latest example of how the Princess of Wales strove to give her children a normal childhood, even if, well, their childhood was anything but. She’d frequently get Harry and William McDonald’s. On a trip to Disneyland, she joined her children on the log flume. She insisted they be put in school at a young age instead of being taught by a governess. And perhaps most importantly, she brought them to visits at homeless shelters and hospitals: “I want them to have an understanding of people’s emotions, people’s insecurities, people’s distress, and people’s hopes and dreams,” she told the BBC.
So maybe it comes as no surprise that Prince William and Kate Middleton are taking a page out of Princess Diana’s playbook when it comes to their own children. Each morning, they blast music for their children, George, Charlotte, and Louis. A particular favorite? “Waka Waka” by Shakira. “Charlotte, particularly, is running around the kitchen in her dresses and ballet stuff and everything,” William said. “She goes completely crazy with Louis following her and trying to do that same thing.”
Like mother, like son.
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