After Queen Camilla married King Charles III in April 2005, his two sons eventually came around to the idea of having a stepmother.
While the king previously dated Camilla as a teenager, they ultimately married other people. Charles, for his part, wed Princess Diana in 1981 and welcomed sons Prince William and Prince Harry in 1982 and 1984, respectively. Camilla had gotten married eight years earlier to Andrew Parker Bowles. Camilla and Andrew also share two children: Tom Parker Bowles and Laura Lopes.
Charles and Camilla were later involved in an extramarital affair scandal. They each got divorced in 1996 and later started to publicly date. When the former Prince of Wales was keen to propose to Camilla, both of his sons were wary.
The Prince of Wales and Harry ultimately made their peace with Charles and Camilla, partially due to William’s wife, Princess Kate Middleton. Kate even snapped the queen’s Country Life cover story in October 2022.
“[Camilla] immediately replied, ‘Oh I’d quite like Catherine to do it.’ I spent the next three or four minutes desperately racking my brain trying to think of a professional photographer called Catherine,” the magazine editor, Mark Hedges, revealed in the issue. “Then suddenly I grasped what she meant — one of the most amazing things that could happen. I found it one of the easier things to nod my head at.”
Scroll below to revisit William and Kate’s relationship with Camilla through the years: