Prince Philip Started a Very Niche, Mustard-Based Prank With His Grandchildren
He was incorrigible.
Prince Philip, in his lifetime, loved nothing more than a good prank.
Speaking on the documentary Prince Philip: The Royal Family Remembers several months after the late Duke of Edinburgh's death in April 2021, some of the royal's grandchildren recalled hilarious anecdotes about Philip—including a very niche, mustard-based prank he would play during family lunches.
"Instead of like a mustard pot we'd have a mustard tube, a squeezy mustard tube," Prince William explained in the doc (via the Mirror).
"And then he'd squish your hands together to fire the mustard onto the ceiling. He used to get in a lot of trouble from my grandmother [the late Queen Elizabeth II] for covering most of the places we had lunch and things with mustard on the ceiling."
Zara Tindall added about the prank, "I can’t remember exactly what he says but he ends up slamming your hands together.... It goes all over the ceiling." Her brother Peter Phillips added, "I actually think the marks are still there." LOL, ew.
Philip was far from the only elder royal with a keen sense of humor.
The Queen herself once famously trolled some American tourists in Balmoral. They didn't recognize her and struck up a conversation with her, asking if she had ever met the Queen, and she told them of the royal protection officer who was with her at the time, "Well, I haven't, but Dick here meets her regularly."
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Meanwhile, the Queen Mother was also quite the fun-loving woman. After her death in 2002, Prince William recalled his great-grandmother's farewell to him as he was leaving for university. He recounted, "As she said goodbye, she said: 'Any good parties, invite me down.' But there was no way. I knew full well that if I invited her down, she would dance me under the table."
And nobody wants to be out-danced by their great-grandmother.
Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of British Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and SELF. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.
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