Return to Transcripts main page
The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper
The Reign Begins: Charles and Camilla. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired April 30, 2023 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: But I'll be back here next weekend. I'll see you then. In the meantime, that's the news. Reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a great week, everybody. Thanks so much for tuning in and we'll see you soon. Have a good night.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Coming up.
KATE WILLIAMS, CNN HISTORIAN AND ROYAL EXPERT: King Charles is a man with a battle on his hands.
COOPER: On THE WHOLE STORY.
CAMILLA TOMINEY, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The king is acutely aware that they're only there for as long as the public wants them to be there.
AILSA ANDERSON, COMMUNICATIONS AND PRESS SECRETARY, QUEEN ELIZABETH II, 2001-2013: The institution is so unique.
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR AND NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you ever imagine that the monarchy would go away?
COOPER (on-camera): Good evening and welcome to THE WHOLE STORY. I'm Anderson Cooper.
Final preparations are underway in the United Kingdom right now for the coronation of King Charles III and his wife, Camilla, the queen consort. It's a ceremony steeped in tradition with some of the rituals dating back nearly a thousand years. It's only been televised once, however, when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned nearly 70 years ago. She was one of the longest serving and most celebrated monarchs in British history but her son faces a different type of reign.
The royal family is splintered and with a new and less popular monarch on the throne, many are questioning the role of this royal institution.
CNN's Erica Hill traveled to London to meet with leading British scholars, journalists, and those close to the royal family to better understand what this moment and this man mean in a modern world.
"The Reign Begins: Charles and Camilla."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: The queen has died, very sadly. CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: For 70 years,
this country has only known a queen.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: King Charles III is taking over.
FOSTER: Long live the king.
HILL (voice-over): For centuries, London reigned as a global center. For finance, for theater, for thought. Today, there is an undeniable energy, from south London's vibrant Brixton neighborhood to the streets and shops of trendy soho. Its palaces and history still a major draw, no matter the weather.
BIDISHA MAMATA, BROADCASTER AND JOURNALIST: Everything begins and ends here at Buckingham Palace. Oh, it's the changing of the guard.
HILL: Much like the changing of the guard, the British monarchy has been steadfast. Loyal to its role on this island and beyond.
ROBERT LACEY, HISTORICAL CONSULTANT, "THE CROWN": In the past, it represented power. Nowadays it's supposed to represent shared values.
KEHINDE ANDREWS, PROFESSOR OF BLACK STUDIES, BIRMINGHAM CITY UNIVERSITY: The idea that they bring us all together in shared values is frankly not true. I mean, not in my --
LACEY: It's supposed to. I'm not --
ANDREWS: It's supposed to be. It doesn't --
LACEY: I'm not saying -- we are here debating whether that's true or not.
ANDREWS: But it's never been true. Most people in Britain and the empire probably don't have that relationship and don't think it's shared values.
HILL: British scholars Kehinde Andrews, Kate Williams, Helen Carr, and Robert Lacey came ready for that debate and more.
WILLIAMS: The queen's monarchy was the high watermark of monarchy.
KING CHARLES III, UNITED KINGDOM: Queen Elizabeth was a life well lived.
WILLIAMS: We'll never have monarchy, I would say, again in terms of such impact and such world influence and talked about so much. I think things are definitely changing.
HELEN CARR, COLUMNIST, BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE: Over the last century with the advent of the internet, social media, everything has become so much more global. And I think young people who are growing up in that world, that very connected world, are starting to ask bigger questions. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't really get it. And I don't really see the
point anymore. I don't wish them any harm. They're -- they're fine. Just I don't want to be part of it.
HILL (on-camera): How do you feel about the monarchy?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think of the history because I'm from Ghana, so I kind of think of the colonization and things like that.
HILL (voice-over): At its height a century ago, the British empire was the largest and most powerful the world had ever seen. King George V ruled over 74 countries and territories counting 458 million people as his subjects.
WILLIAMS: We are in flux in this country between do we acknowledge slavery, do we acknowledge empire, do we acknowledge how much that has made this country, you know, this tiny, tiny country one of the most richest and most powerful countries in the world? Or do we carry on with the idea of fair play and railways and that, you know, British influence is always benevolent?
LACEY: Whatever the sins of Britain in the past, King Charles is quite aware of those. He has inherited an institution with many imperfections.
[20:05:07]
HILL: In 2023, just how much can King Charles put right? How much of these imperfections does he need to address to keep this royal institution alive?
KING CHARLES III: I want to acknowledge that the roots of our contemporary association run deep into the most painful period of our history. I cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of so many, as I continue to deepen my own understanding of slavery's enduring impact.
JACK ROYSTON, CHIEF ROYAL CORRESPONDENT, NEWSWEEK: He's gone somewhere already, but he's acknowledged the hurt that people feel, but the key sticking point, is what's wanted is an apology.
HILL: In early April, the king agreed to open the royal archives to researchers looking into the monarchy's ties to slavery.
MAMATA: What people are asking of the royal family now is simply, what do you stand for? What are you going to do with all your money and privilege and visibility?
HILL: His former communications secretary, Kristina Kyriacou, says the king has been preparing for those questions for decades.
KRISTINA KYRIACOU, ADVISER, COMMUNICATIONS SECRETARY TO KING CHARLES 2009-2016: He sees himself as in a position where he can be the great convener, the great mediator, the interjectory, the person who brings something to the fore.
KING CHARLES III: The commonwealth has been a constant in my own life. It shares scale, challenges us to unite and be bold.
HILL: While many are hopeful that King Charles can achieve those goals --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think hopefully he will do a good job. He's quite beloved in this country.
HILL: His own history presents an unavoidable hurdle for the new monarch.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just that we've gotten used to Queen Elizabeth and for it to also be a man that's not very well liked in the world, I guess, because of the whole Diana-Camilla thing.
MAMATA: With King Charles, his dirty and clean laundry has been in public for decades now.
ANDREWS: The queen was popular because we didn't know anything about it. Don't know anything about it all. Whereas Prince Charles, we already know too much about him.
HILL: It's impossible to talk about Charles without mentioning the late Princess Diana.
SARAH HEWSON, ROYAL EDITOR, TALK TV: The Charles and Diana story was the fairy tale that turned into the nightmare that ultimately turned into the tragedy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I cannot believe what he has done.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's really shown what he truly is like and that is someone who is a cheat.
HILL: British journalist Sarah Hewson, Bidisha Mamata, and Jack Royston, and Camilla Tominey have covered the royals for decades.
ROYSTON: We went back to old Poland from this era. Back in 1991, so this is one year before his affair with Camilla first became public knowledge. As many as 82 percent of the British public thought he'd make a good king. By the time they divorced in 1946, only 41 percent of British people thought that he would make a good king.
KYRIACOU: Sometimes in life, and definitely in the royal family, you're born into roles that are very set piece. You're born into roles that sort of have a template, a historical template. And I think sometimes it must be very difficult. What is absolute fact is that he tried to change that for both of his sons.
HILL: When we return, King Charles the rebel?
ROYSTON: Charles had points when he was absolutely raging against the machine in exactly the same way Harry did.
ANDERSON: He was ahead of his time.
KYRIACOU: He's ahead of his time, Ailsa. ANDERSON: That's exactly right.
KYRIACOU: Ahead of his time.
HILL: And later.
WILLIAMS: King Charles is a man with a battle on his hands.
HILL: The fight to save the monarchy.
TOMINEY: The king is acutely aware that they're only there for as long as the public wants them to be there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:11:12]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: A dramatic and shocking announcement --
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Royal drama in the United Kingdom.
HEWSON: We're seeing the departure of Harry and Meghan hitting them hard.
PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX: To see this institutional gaslighting, that is extraordinary.
WILLIAMS: People were very excited that perhaps the royal family was reflecting a multicultural country.
ANDREWS: Even when it is in their interest, clearly, blatantly in their interest to use this couple to promote their agenda, still can't do.
CARR: I think that is a huge missed opportunity.
HILL (on-camera): Is there any way to get some of that opportunity back?
CARR: That's difficult to say.
TOMINEY: Look, they're not a nuclear family. They're to some extent a thermonuclear one?
HILL (voice-over): In the three years since Harry and Meghan announced they were stepping back from their royal duties --
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Buckingham Palace has been blindsided by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's announcement that they are quitting their royal roles.
HILL: -- the spotlight on this family has only grown.
OPRAH WINFREY, TV HOST: There's a conversation about how dark your baby is going to be?
MEGHAN MARKLE, DUCHESS OF SUSSEX: Potentially. And what that would mean or look like.
HILL: British journalist Camilla Tominey broke the news of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's relationship. She says, despite the outrage, Harry's public push for a different royal path feels familiar.
TOMINEY: There is a great deal of similarity, I think, between the prince of Wales at times raging against the machine and saying, well, I want to do this, and I want to talk about that, and by the way, I know what I'm talking about, and I'm not afraid to say it. Who does that remind you of? Reminds me massively of Harry.
HILL (on-camera): In his book "Spare," Harry writes that Charles had always been discouraged from hard work, he told me. He'd been advised that the heir shouldn't do too much. Shouldn't try too hard for fear of outshining the monarch, but he'd rebelled. Is Charles a rebel? Does anyone feel he is?
CARR: I wouldn't call him a rebel. I think that he has developed a sense of self-awareness, and gone at things in a different way, but I wouldn't say that that would be -- I wouldn't call that rebelling.
WILLIAMS: I think he'd like to see himself as a rebel and revolutionary.
ANDREWS: King Charles is not a rebellion, certainly not revolutionary. I wish he was, but I doubt he'll do anything to rock the boat.
ROYSTON: Charles had points when he was absolutely raging against the machine in exactly the same way Harry did. There are so many parallels.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Prince Harry's new book makes it clear why there was no happily ever after for him if he stayed inside those palace walls.
HILL (voice-over): Nearly 30 years before "Spare," a bombshell biography of then Prince Charles pulled back the curtain on his own difficult upbringing. The authorized book detailing unresolved issues between Charles and his parents, including the emotional gulf between him and his mother, describing Queen Elizabeth as detached and recounting how his father, Prince Philip, thought Charles was a bit of a wimp as a child and bullied him, often bringing him to tears, particularly at social gatherings.
As for finding that hard work, that act of rebellion Harry talks about, it was also about finding a purpose as the monarch-in-waiting.
LACEY: As a young man, he had to look around for causes to support that were not political. And I think we forget that back in the day, to fight for the environment or try and save the planet was so off the wall, it wasn't a political issue.
TOMINEY: Even though he has his extremely obvious flaws, there is this general sense to which he has tried to make a difference in a genuine way, that when he talks about some of these causes, that he actually means what he's saying. KING CHARLES III: Climate change being the greatest threat humanity
has ever faced, quite literally.
[20:15:04]
As long as I'm still just alive, I shall go on trying to provide what little help I can.
HILL: His passion for the environment has driven Charles for decades.
KING CHARLES III: I've been, I'm afraid, at this for rather a long time.
HEWSON: He was deemed as being completely bonkers for talking to his plants, for holistic well-being, for example. And yet all of those issues have now come into the mainstream. Look at where we are on climate change now.
HILL: Ailsa Anderson, Charles Anson, and Kristina Kyriacou saw many of those moments and those issues up close during their time working for the royal family.
KYRIACOU: He mentioned organic farming in 1971. And all people did for the next 30 years was ridicule him.
ANDERSON: But he was ahead of his time.
KYRIACOU: He was ahead of his time, Ailsa. Ahead of his time.
KING CHARLES III: Things don't stand still. And it's very possible that we get left behind if we're not always trying to see where the next challenge is coming from.
CHARLES ANSON, PRESS SECRETARY TO QUEEN ELIZABETH II, 1990-1997: I think there's a natural energy in someone like the king, who is very proud and loves his country. He has a strong sort of sense of humanity as a whole.
KYRIACOU: Charles is a passionate man. He's an empathetic man. He's a sensitive man. And those adjectives that I've used to describe him already should give people the sense that he can be hotheaded.
HILL: That passion fueling a series of letters, the so-called "Black Spider memos," sent to senior government officials in the early 2000s with policy demands on key issues, like the Iraq war, a move seen by many as drifting into politics, breaking with royal protocol.
LACEY: The black spider came from the reference to his handwriting. He'd get a letter typed and then he couldn't resist scribbling all sorts of points in it. And when he was taxed on this, he would say rather defiantly, this is what ordinary people said to me. So I'm passing it on to you politicians who should know about it.
ROYSTON: The man is legitimately a workaholic and has a kind of deeply philosophical profound belief in work, like the Prince's Trust, which actually he sets up to try and help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds find work.
KING CHARLES III: We are committed to helping young people achieve their ambitions.
HILL: Charles established that charity in the 1970s after serving in the Royal Navy.
HEWSON: He set that up with his Navy severance pay. 7,400 pounds that he put into 21 community projects and it's grown now in the form of the Prince's Trust as we now know it to support over a million disadvantaged young people, and among them, the Hollywood actor, Idris Elba.
IDRIS ALBA, ACTOR: I came up in the Prince's Trust. I actually auditioned for a grant and they gave me a grant.
TOMINEY: He's always sort of talked in terms of leaving a legacy, when he said he hoped that he would leave the world in a better place than he had found it, that he's quite genuine in that endeavor.
HILL: And yet, despite those efforts, there seemed to be no escaping the turmoil of the '90s.
MAMATA: Diana looms enormously over the entire story. You have people who weren't even alive when Diana was alive talking about her as if she's the new Marilyn Monroe figure of the U.K.
WILLIAMS: Diana is surging on TikTok, partly due to her advocacy for AIDS and the early discussing about the LGBTQ community and that's why Diana's legacy is so powerful in terms of what she did, in terms of who she was, and she is always someone who when people see Charles, they think about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have some very sad news to bring you.
KYRIACOU: The aftermath of the death of Diana was something that was felt around the globe, to have died so young, so tragically, such a vibrant figure.
CARR: And the sort of absolute grief that overcame the country was quite extraordinary.
WILLIAMS: It was extraordinary. People were like, men, women, children tears flowing down their faces.
HILL: That grief resonating with a new generation, in large part due to the popularity of "The Crown."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I think that people out there can sense that I have suffered.
HILL: And Prince Harry's ongoing pain.
PRINCE HARRY: I could no face the reality that she was gone.
WILLIAMS: Although we know Charles and Camilla want to move on from it, the fallout of the divorce, Princess Diana, is always going to be there.
[20:20:08]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The blame lies with King Charles, and therefore Camilla was kind of to blame, but also dragged through the mud a bit.
HILL (on-camera): How do you feel about Camilla?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would prefer Diana, I guess. But she's fine.
TOMINEY: I remember having a conversation with the queen consort about being called Camilla, because, obviously, we're both called Camilla, and then I remarked that not many people were called Camilla these days, which then she remarked might have been because of her.
(LAUGHTER)
HILL (voice-over): Ahead, why the woman who was once among Britain's most hated is now seen as the king's biggest asset.
KYRIACOU: She rules with an iron rod with him.
HILL (on-camera): She keeps him in line?
KYRIACOU: Oh, my goodness.
HILL (voice-over): An evolution with its own share of drama.
TOMINEY: There was definitely an attempt to rehabilitate the king's image and indeed that of his girlfriend, as she was at the time, because she was public enemy number one. There's no doubt about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:25:58]
TOMINEY: Most people look upon the king and queen consort as a couple and say, well, they arguably should have probably been together from the beginning.
HILL: Instead, getting to that point took decades at a very public toll. Years before a shy Diana Spencer was introduced to the world, it was Camilla Shant who caught the eye of the prince of Wales. The two first met in 1970.
WILLIAMS: Had Charles married Camilla in the first place, she would be seen as a popular consort.
HILL: Charles joined the Navy in 1971 and while he was at sea, Camilla became engaged to Andrew Parker Bowles. But that wasn't the only complication. For a man born to be king, the requirements for his future queen were clear. An aristocratic bloodline and virginity. Love was far less important.
KYRIACOU: It must be very difficult to say, I, perhaps, would like to follow a different path. And so perhaps, in the mele of all of that, Charles wasn't strong enough to say what he really wanted. But he tried to change that for both of his sons. He allowed them to choose freely who they love.
HILL (on-camera): Standing on this bridge, we are in the center of truly all things British.
ANSON: You see Buckingham Palace at the other end of the lake, horse guards where the trooping of the color ceremony takes place. And then, of course, Westminster Abbey through the trees.
HILL (voice-over): Charles Anson was Queen Elizabeth's press secretary from 1990 to 1997.
(On-camera): The years that you were there were some of the most difficult years. So you had the tapes.
ANSON: It was a period of huge change in terms of communication, the sophistication of being able to bug people's phones and so on. So that when those tapes emerged like that, clearly illegally taped conversations, I was in a very tricky position and I didn't feel there was any alternative but simply not make a comment.
HILL (voice-over): Those tapes were recordings of a private explicit phone call between Charles and Camilla in 1989, when both were still married. The transcripts published four years later rocked the country. The tabloid-ready details, including the now infamous moment Charles told Camilla he wished to live inside her trousers quickly became known as Camillagate.
TOMINEY: You look at the Camillagates and you feel that you've perhaps passed the point of no return. It happened at a time when there was a huge amount of gossip around this forbidden love triangle of the royal family. And that is very adult. It's dark, it's deep, it's scintillating gossip.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was only a matter of time before the tabloids printed what's been circulating in private for days.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first complete transcript of the so-called Camillagate tape.
TOMINEY: It was so damaging because there was an extent to which it depicted the king in a ridiculous and preposterous light.
HILL: Charles admitted to the affair a year later. A moment made all the more dramatic in "The Crown" on Netflix.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you at least try to be faithful from the start?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Until it became obvious that the marriage couldn't be saved.
HILL: Words that only seemed to strengthen support for Princess Diana and disdain for the prince of Wales.
WILLIAMS: For so many people, he's seen as someone who was really caught up in a marriage that had the consequence of an incredibly cruel and brutal to Diana.
[20:30:10]
ROYSTON: Charles fell from grace during the Diana era in quite a spectacular way.
HILL: Camilla was the other villain in this story.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the wake of Princess Diana's death, it appeared the public would never accept Parker-Bowles.
HILL: The woman who 30 years later is now queen.
TOMINEY: The biggest irony, of course, is that of all of the royals, arguably the most friendly towards the press is the queen consort, the woman who has been most destroyed by the press.
LACEY: She was portrayed as a wicked, scheming woman who was breaking up the royal marriage. I think that was unfair to her. I mean, it was Charles who broke up that marriage. And he wanted a Camilla, not a Diana.
HILL: Queen Elizabeth finally gave her blessing for Charles and Diana to divorce in 1996. Just a year before Diana's tragic death.
JIM CLANCY, FORMER CNN ANCHOR: Princess Diana has been killed in a car crash in Paris.
HILL: While Camilla had remained by his side privately, it would take time and careful choreography for her to join him publicly.
KING CHARLES III: Suddenly you find yourself, you know, on the public stage, it is a challenge and if you've not found yourself in that position before, you can imagine it is a real challenge.
KYRIACOU: It was a very, very turbulent time, but a lot of what happened during that time was very much from her sensibility. That she shouldn't in any way be overt.
HILL (on-camera): Was there a role from the press office in helping with Camilla's image? How much would the queen's press office have played a role in some of those decisions? How closely would the offices work together?
ANSON: Very closely together, indeed. And I think in the early stages of their relationship, the palace was keen to take it at a measured rate and not sort of do too much at one time.
HILL (voice-over): In his book and in an interview with Anderson Cooper on "60 Minutes," Prince Harry says that measured campaign made his future stepmother dangerous.
COOPER (on-camera): How is she dangerous?
PRINCE HARRY: Because of the need for her to rehabilitate her image. HILL: Harry says the effort to boost Camilla's image, and at times his
father's, came at the expense of bad press for Harry and William, and that Camilla, quote, "sacrificed me on her personal PR altar."
TOMINEY: There was definitely an attempt to rehabilitate the king's image and indeed that of her, his girlfriend, as she was at the time, because she was public enemy number one. There's no doubt about it.
HILL: The view from inside the palace? Not surprisingly a bit different.
ANDERSON: The institution is so unique, there's so much that other people outside wouldn't understand, but we do.
KYRIACOU: The very notion that those people employed in the royal households would set the family members up against each other and start telling me about negative stories about different -- I was quite horrified. It's not something that I had ever witnessed.
ANDERSON: I totally agree with that.
ANSON: Absolutely the same. As a family, they needed to stand together as much as possible. Of course there would be tensions.
CAMILLA, QUEEN CONSORT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM: Hello? How are you? Nice to see you. Hi. Hi.
HILL: When we return --
MAMATA: Her great task now is to show everyone around her and the public, look, I am here for a reason. I didn't just home wreck this family and be part of a horrible, weird, Greek tragedy.
CARR: And she's been a real rock and a support.
WILLIAMS: Ultimately, she is essential to Charles.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:39:21]
HEWSON: Members of the royal household will know that if you want something done, you have a quiet word in the ear of the queen consort. She'll say, leave it with me. And she'll then make sure that it happens. And that the king is onboard.
HILL: It's been nearly 20 years since Charles and Camilla were married.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And there you see them, now married. You can see the gold ring on Camilla's hand.
KING CHARLES III: It's always nice to have somebody on your side. We laugh a lot because she sees the funny side of life.
HILL: Twenty years of handshakes and royal engagements, of smiles and photos.
[20:40:12]
Chances to connect and to convince.
HEWSON: When we talk about Camilla and her PR, it was a slow, steady playing the long game, from public enemy number one to where she is now, soon to be queen, crowned in Westminster Abbey.
TOMINEY: She's got a consciousness about her public image.
CAMILLA: What is going on in history class?
TOMINEY: I think she's also conscious perhaps of her husband's ego or indeed the ego of the institution of royalty, to which she belongs.
WILLIAMS: Charles was very jealous of Diana's popularity.
LACEY: I think the reason Camilla fits in better with him than Diana did is because she doesn't upstage him.
HILL (on-camera): How responsible is she for what has changed in terms of the perception toward Charles? Did she help?
WILLIAMS: I think certainly, she acts as a calming influence to Charles. She's there when things are getting a little bit fraught, tempers may be frayed. And we saw it played out in the days after the queen's death.
KING CHARLES III: Oh, my god. I hate this.
CAMILLA: Oh, look, it's going everywhere. Hang on. Has anybody got --
HEWSON: And when the pens weren't working or the ink was going everywhere.
KING CHARLES III: I can't bear this bloody thing. What they do every stinking time.
HEWSON: There she was, calming him down. That it's all right. Let's change the pen.
KING CHARLES III: It's always nice to have somebody who, you know, you feel understands and wants to encourage and, you know, certainly poke fun if I get too serious about it.
KYRIACOU: One thing that we see from the queen consort, Camilla, that she rules with an iron rod with him.
HILL (on-camera): She keeps him in line.
KYRIACOU: Oh, my goodness, absolutely. She has very much been the driving force, trying to get some work-life balance into his life.
HILL (voice-over): In a family brimming with very public turmoil, King Charles may need Camilla's steady hand more than ever. WILLIAMS: Let's face it, what kind of relationship does he have with
Andrew? I mean, Andrew is accused of being a criminal. He didn't have a good relationship with his parents. He has a sticky relationship with his children. Camilla is his rock. And he is -- he is very reliant on her.
HILL: Prince Andrew was once second in line to the throne. A helicopter pilot, rumored to be the queen's favorite child, until his stunning fall from grace amid claims of sexual abuse.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Prince Andrews speaks out about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and allegations he had sex with an underage girl.
HILL: While he has repeatedly denied the accusations, Andrew was stripped of his royal duties and military titles, the son noting the queen had effectively banished him. A civil suit filed by his accuser in 2021 was settled in early 2022 with no admission of guilt or wrongdoing.
ROYSTON: The monarchy was slow to take action on Prince Andrew. And he should have had his honorary patronages revoked way sooner. You know, Harry's and Meghan's were revoked before Andrew's were. And honestly that is a stain on the reputation of the monarchy.
WILLIAMS: How damaging he is to the monarchy? This is a big headache for the coronation. I think people accepted that he was there in the queen's funeral. He is the queen's son. But simply Andrew couldn't be more toxic.
CARR: It's incendiary. I think that's one of the key contentions really, isn't it? But nobody really covers Andrew much in comparison to Meghan, who gets covered all the time. And that is problematic. That's deeply problematic because you have this person who is connected to all of this evil and wrong and yet that is less important somehow than a black woman as part of the royal family. And that is --
HILL (on-camera): That is stark contrast.
CARR: It's a stark contrast.
HILL (voice-over): Scandals, real and imagined, dominate the royal headlines.
ELENI GIOKOS, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Prince Harry's new book and his media blitz are causing a stir.
HILL (on-camera): Has the relationship between the press and the royal family changed at all in the last several years?
[20:45:06]
MAMATA: I think the relationship between the press and the royal family has actually not changed. Because they want to be seen, they want to be talked about. But only in a good light. HILL: Kate, you wrote, a royal is rather like the old adage about a
tree that falls in the forest. If it's not heard, does it make a sound? They have no point unless they are seen.
WILLIAMS: They have to be in the press because you're not there to be seen, you don't exist.
HILL (voice-over): Controlling when and how they're seen is a lot more difficult in 2023. And not just because everyone is a photographer.
ANDREWS: Part of the problem that the monarchy has in relation to the press is, this is built on an old model. A wall of silence, making them get what they want. But Harry and Meghan had shown, you can't do that anymore. You've got Netflix, you've got Spotify, you've got book deals. There's no far too much of them.
HEWSON: That relationship between the royal family and the media is a complex difficult, at times relationship, that they need the media, the media needs them. They don't like what each other's doing all the time.
ANSON: At the end of the day, the monarchy's got to perform in a way that attracts public support.
PRINCE HARRY: Hi, guys.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Prince Harry will attend his father's coronation.
HILL: Public support can be fickle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's going to be doing so, alone.
SIDNER: His wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, will not join him.
HILL: Public feuds, downright disastrous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It could be that there's still a huge amount of tension between Meghan and the rest of the family.
KYRIACOU: What I would say definitely with his majesty is that he was always very keen to bring it back to their core business, which was serving members of the public. That was often the benchmark for us. Is it a public matter? Is it a private matter? If it's a private matter, in general, no, don't comment.
HILL (on-camera): So what I'm hearing in all of this is, don't expect to hear anything from the king about whether he and Harry are going to reconcile. Is that what I should take from that?
KYRIACOU: Well, with I think so.
HILL: That is a question I think a lot of people have.
KYRIACOU: I absolutely think so.
ANSON: You'll never get rid of gossip and gossip is a trait in every single culture.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. Thank you, sir.
ANSON: But equally, I think all families have their difficulties that they've got to deal with.
HILL (voice-over): Still to come, as the monarchy shrinks, could even bigger changes lie ahead?
ROYSTON: In Britain, it has caused a swing in opinion among 18 to 24- year-olds, specifically.
ANDREWS: The monarchy works because you don't know. Because of that mystique and that prestige. When you start to pull away, you just realize, these are ordinary people. Why on earth are they representing us? That's the big existential threat to the monarchy, which I don't know if you can put the Genie back in the bottle.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:52:54]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't care for the monarchy. I feel like there's no point in them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not sure how it's used in modern society.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think we should have a monarchy anymore.
HILL (on-camera): Do you ever imagine that the monarchy would go away?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It could happen.
ROYSTON: Privilege is going out of fashion really fast. We're in the eat-the-rich era. You know, the history of colonialism and slavery is a major problem. So the chessboard is stacked against them.
ANDREWS: The whole world debacle around them, the debacle in all this has turned into relief and (INAUDIBLE). Haven't really changed much of the life.
HILL: Is there an opportunity for King Charles to lead more in that discussion?
ANDREWS: I think we have to accept him. One of the primary functions of the royal family today is symbolic. And it was to be a symbol of (INAUDIBLE).
LACEY: Prince Charles -- King Charles, sorry, was sitting at this table now, he would take great exception to that remark. When this issue rose with the royal family, William made a point of breaking the protocol.
WILLIAM, PRINCE OF WALES: We're very much not a racist family.
LACEY: You may disagree. Many people would disagree. But that is his declared line.
HEWSON: We're seeing a shift in the generations, which is we're not just going to sit back silently now and take this. There are times when we have to speak out. And if they don't, they're no longer irrelevant.
ANDREWS: But if you're going to move on then you have to deal with the problem. There's nothing they can do other than (INAUDIBLE).
TOMINEY: The king's acutely aware, like his late mother was, that they're only there for as long as the public wants them to be.
ROYSTON: In Britain, among 18 to 24-year-olds, where now more than 50 percent would support abolishing the monarchy.
HILL (on-camera): The way I understand it, there's no real rule about how the U.K. would go about abolishing the monarchy.
WILLIAMS: We have no constitution. This is one of our questions. Unlike so many other countries that have monarchies, head of state, have constitutions. So that political world has to be there to abolish the monarchy.
LACEY: The monarchy does depend on taxpayers' money. It receives 80 million to 90 million pounds of taxpayers' money every year. Every year that goes through the parliamentary process.
[20:55:06]
HILL (voice-over): Last year, the royal family cost each U.K. taxpayer roughly $1.60. and while that number is admittedly low, amid rising inflation, it's the optics that really add up.
ROYSTON: The current generation are about to go through a cost-of- living crisis. It's his problem right now. In the future, it might actually be William's problem.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody is really struggling now with the economy and the cost of living. So to see that amount of money spent on medieval ritual, that really impacts zero on everyday people's lives, just seems a little bit sickening.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels very extravagant.
HILL: But it's not just about the coronation. A message King Charles seems to understand.
LACEY: Charles always had this idea, a monarchy that costs less and involves less people on the balcony.
HILL: And there's inspiration to be found in some of Europe's other aging monarchies, like Sweden, where in 2019 the king cut five of his grandchildren from the taxpayer funded payroll.
HEWSON: Charles has to look at this and has to think about this in his role as preserving the monarchy for the next generation. For William, for George, and whether or not he can preserve it.
KING CHARLES III: Very nice having grandchildren, actually, I think. And it's very odd that you can't believe it's happening to you. It's rather fun to get down on the floor and do silly things with them.
TOMINEY: People might say, well, hang on. No, we expect George, Charlotte, and Louie to have proper jobs and maybe a little bit of royal work on the side. And somehow the monarchy is going to have to adapt to that.
HILL (on-camera): A lot can change in 20 years.
(Voice-over): Of course, there's a big difference between a leaner lineup of royals and none at all. And even the staunchest critics believe abolishing the British monarchy is unlikely.
ANDREWS: The monarchy is very popular. (INAUDIBLE) going to say about it, as much a critique I can give to it, it is still very, very popular.
MAMATA: There will never not be a monarchy in the U.K. So, the question has to be, both for the public and the royals, what are you here for? And what are you going to do with all of this extraordinary privilege and power and wealth that you have?
HEWSON: I think what we're seeing is him trying to carve out that role where he stands, how far he can go. And time will tell whether or not he is able to continue to make a difference in the same way. I think he has to do that in a quieter way behind closed doors by bringing others together.
MAMATA: But I like that about him. I like the fact that I imagine him reading the sort of king terms and conditions every night going like --
HEWSON: And thinking, OK, how can I push this?
MAMATA: Where's the loophole in this?
HILL (on-camera): Is there a handbook for being king?
MAMATA: Don't know.
(LAUGHTER)
HILL: Definitely not.
HEWSON: When it comes to this legacy, people are looking beyond the king. They are looking to the prince and princess of Wales and their role in the future of the monarchy is absolutely pivotal. The most important player in the House of Windsor right now is Kate and has been for some time because her positioning and the extra kind of sprinkling of stardust that she brings to proceedings, to what is now an all-male line of succession for some time to come. And it's going to be the positioning of the Wales' children as well.
HILL (voice-over): Of course it's possible those young heirs decide they don't want a royal life. It wouldn't be the first time.
CARR: There have been many crises throughout the history of monarchy. And it is something that is, I believe, going to continue until there is a (INAUDIBLE) monarchy and a monarch that decides, this isn't for me, or enough is enough. That now is the time to end this. But also I question sort of who would that be? That's a significant lineage to end.
LACEY: There might be someone who says there, but there might be a brother or cousin who says, I'll do the job. And then --
(CROSSTALK)
CARR: Which to be fair, if we're going to back and looking at what's happened in history, that would certainly be the case.
HILL: Barring any defectors, the future is clear for at least two more generations.
ANSON: It was King Farouk of Egypt who said, I'd like to make a wager that in 100 years, there will only be five monarchies left. King or queen of England, king of spades, queen of diamonds, kind of hearts, and queen of clubs.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (on-camera): To further celebrate the coronation next weekend, King Charles is encouraging communities to come together for local picnics, a nationwide day of service, and on Sunday night a televised coronation concert. There are protests planned as well from anti- monarchy groups which is how large they will be remains to be seen.
Join us next Sunday as we look at allegations surrounding a commonly used household product that some women are now blaming for their cancers.
I'll see you next time then.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
