Prince William shared that his late mother once played a prank on him that almost made him fall down the stairs. To mark the 20th anniversary of the late Princess Diana’s death in 2017, William said in an interview that he went “bright red” after his late mother arranged for supermodels Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell to be at their home when he returned from school.
The royal said: “Just outside this room where we are now, she organised when I came home from school to have Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell waiting at the top of the stairs.
“I was probably a 12 or 13 year old boy who had posters of them on his wall. And I went bright red and didn’t know quite what to say and sort of fumbled and I think I pretty much fell down the stairs on the way up.”
Describing his late mother, who would have been celebrating her 64th birthday today, as a “joker”, he added: “I was completely and utterly sort of awestruck.
“That was a very funny memory that’s lived with me forever about her, loving and embarrassing and being the sort of joker.”
Former royal butler Grant Harrold has also previously spoken about Diana’s sense of humour, revealing that once got the perfect stocking filler gift for her younger son, Prince Harry.
He explained: “She’d spend hours looking for jokey things for their stockings. One year, Harry got fake dog poo.”
Speaking about his memories with his late mother – who died when he was just 15, on Apple’s podcast Time to Walk in 2022, William recalled how she would play “all sorts of songs” to calm both of her sons anxieties about returning to the new school year.
He said: “One of the songs I massively remember and has stuck with me all this time – I to this day still quite enjoy it, secretly – is Tina Turner’s The Best, because sitting in the backseat singing away, it felt like a real family moment.
“You’d be singing, listening to the music right the way up to the gates of school where they dropped you off, and that’s when reality kind of sunk in: You really were going back to school, because before that you’re lost in song…”