Prince William has always been the more private and reserved of Princess Diana’s kids—but he’s opening up for a new show premiering Dec. 6, and revealing more of his home life with Kate Middleton and their children Prince George, 8, Princess Charlotte, 6, and Prince Louis, 3.
Specifically, he’s opening up about their morning routine, which involves a dance party—and some sibling rivalry over who gets to pick the song to start the day.
"Most mornings there's a massive fight between Charlotte and George as to what song is played in the morning," William said on the episode of Apple Fitness+'s Time to Walk series that premieres Monday, according to People.
To avoid fights, the Duke of Cambridge said, he has to trade off who gets to choose. "I have to, now, basically prioritize that one day someone does this one, and another day it's someone else's turn,” he described. “So George gets his go, then Charlotte gets her go. Such is the clamor for the music."
A favorite in the Cambridges home right now: “Waka Waka” by Shakira. “There's a lot of hip movements going along,” William said. “There's a lot of dressing up."
Dressing up to dance isn’t new for the little royals. Both Prince George and Princess Charlotte have taken ballet lessons, George as part of his school curriculum and Charlotte in private lessons in London.
"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 around trying to do the same thing.”
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"It's a really happy moment where the children just enjoy dancing, messing around, and singing,” he added.
A song that he feels connected to, William said, is “The Best,” Tina Turner’s 1989 hit, because it holds positive memories of his mother.
"My mother used to play all sorts of songs to kind of while away the anxiety of going back” to boarding school, William said, per Town and Country. “One of the songs I massively remember and has stuck with me all this time, and I still, to this day, still quite enjoy secretly, is Tina Turner's 'The Best' because sitting in the backseat, singing away, it felt like a real family moment."
That family moment included both young princes, William and Harry, singing with Diana. “My mother, she'd be driving along, singing at the top of her voice. And we'd even get the policeman in the car, he'd be occasionally singing along, as well,” he said. “You'd be singing and listening to the music right the way out into the gates of school, when they dropped you off.”
He described feeling “lost in songs” as a distraction from going back to boarding school. “You'll want to play it again just to keep that family moment going.”
“When I listen to it now,” William added, “it takes me back to those car rides and brings back lots of memories of my mother.”
Julie Tremaine is an award-winning food and travel writer who’s road tripping — and tasting — her way across the country. Her work appears in outlets like Vulture, Travel + Leisure, CNN Travel and Glamour, and she’s the Disneyland editor for SFGate. Read her work at Travel-Sip-Repeat.com.
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