“HELLO, sir,” I said to Prince William when we first met almost twenty years ago.
A tall, shy 13-year-old boy with braces on his teeth tentatively shook my hand at Kensington Palace.
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Prince William – second from right, a 13-year-old on his first day at Eton with mum Diana, brother Harry and dad Charles – cheekily asked for wine when he first met Piers Credit: PA: Press Association
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Princess Diana invited Piers Morgan to lunch – and Prince William joined Credit: Getty
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Piers Morgan praises Prince William for ‘playing blind’ as he steps out following King Charles’ diagnosis
His mother, Princess Diana, invited me to a private lunch – I was editor of the Daily Mirror at the time – and at the last minute asked me if I would mind if her elder son joined us.
“That would be terribly inconvenient,” I deadpanned.
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Diana blushed slightly and began to stammer apologetically “Yes, of course, I’m so sorry…” before I burst out laughing.
“Madam, I think I can let the future king join me for lunch!”
What followed was the most unusual meal of my life in which Diana talked about everything in her life from her failed marriage and multiple boyfriends to cellulite and the future of the Monarchy, all the while William eyed me like a suspicious young dolphin encountering a hungry shark.
He was polite, intelligent, mature – beyond his years, quite an intense young man who was clearly very close and protective of his mother.
But there was one moment that always stuck in my memory.
William asked for a glass of wine to match mine, and Diana, aware of how such juvenile drinking would look to a voracious tabloid news chaser, immediately snapped, “No, William, what are you thinking?”
He replied, “But mom, I drink it all the time.”
“Um, actually you don’t and can’t have them!” she exclaimed nervously.
The adorable moment five-year-old Prince William kisses mom Princess Diana on the nose
“Yes, I want to and yes, I can!” laughed.
And then he did it.
This, I thought, is a boy who knows his mind and has a bit of a naughty, rebellious streak.
We met a few more times after that and he was always the epitome of charm, once poking me in the stomach at a party and gushing: “That’s not a six pack, Piers, that’s a keg!”
But I was never fooled.
‘HE ALSO LOST A BROTHER’
William always saw the media as an enemy, especially after Diana’s tragic death.
He has just learned to tolerate us and work with us, unlike his hot-headed brother Harry who prefers to wage a constant hypocritical war with the press because they do the same thing he does to his family week after week.
And while most of my media colleagues share my disdain for the Duke of Netflix for the way he has publicly smeared and abused the royal family in order to enrich himself, they also share my immense admiration for William who has chosen the exact opposite path.
I watched him at Sunday night’s Bafta awards, flying among the Hollywood greats with supreme ease and “the show must go on” professionalism, and marveled at how calm and untroubled he seemed despite everything going on behind the scenes in his life.
Just think about what William has been through in recent years.
He lost his beloved grandparents and, like his mother, was forced by protocol to mourn them in public at mass funerals broadcast on global television.
He had also lost his only sibling, in a different way, feeling so angry at the way Harry had betrayed him so incredibly that it was understandable that he wanted nothing more to do with him.
‘PRIVATE TUMBLES’
And now he has to deal with two more huge challenges: his wife Catherine is undergoing serious abdominal surgery for an unknown condition that has left her incapacitated for months, and his father, King Charles, has been diagnosed with cancer.
William must be going through a lot of private turmoil, but we would never know.
Unlike his brother, he does not play the victim, nor does he feel the need to constantly blather on about his problems to the world.
Instead, he just gets on with things without asking for an ounce of sympathy, with incredible dignity and humility, even apologizing for his late decision to attend the Baftas himself and for not watching enough films due to his wife’s illness.
Also this weekend, William announced plans to build 24 homes in the West Country to provide temporary accommodation for homeless people on Duchy of Cornwall land.
It was another sign that the royal family’s core business – not exploiting titles for money like Harry, but dutifully serving the needs of the most vulnerable members of the British public – continues, regardless of the drama unfolding in their personal lives.
Make no mistake: This is a very uncomfortable, turbulent time for the Royals.
‘PLAYING BLIND’
The concept of a scaled-down monarchy with far fewer working members was heralded as a great idea when Charles first launched it when he was Prince of Wales.
And we all cheered at the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee when the balcony was restricted to the major superstars led by Her Majesty, while the likes of disgraced Prince Andrew and disgraced Harry were consigned to extraordinary oblivion.
But look at how fragile it all suddenly looks now that she is sadly gone, her son and heir has cancer, and Catherine is also out of action.
The answer to this crisis is not Harry’s return to any part-time royal action as he is clearly desperate to keep the Sussex coffers afloat. He made his treacherous bed in California and can lie in his dirty dollars.
No, the answer is William, who has proven to be an incredibly reliable rock of quiet, determined, docile, implacable stability amidst all the uncertainty.
If we had drunk another glass of wine together, I would have toasted him:
“Cheers, sir, you’re playing blind.”
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Prince William arrived at Bafta alone despite the pressure of his wife’s recovery from surgery and his father’s cancer diagnosis Credit: Splash
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Prince Harry is not the answer to the current crisis of the royal family Credit: Mega Agency
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