Picture this: You’re at the pub, enjoying a pint and a laugh, and in walks…the Princess of Wales and Princess Charlotte? What? Am I dreaming? you ask. Have I had one too many pints? Nope, it’s really them. And what the mother-daughter duo needed is surprisingly relatable, The Daily Express reports.
“Princess Charlotte stunned pub-goers once during a very unexpected royal visit,” the outlet reports. “The young royal, along with her mum, Kate, Princess of Wales, nipped into a south London pub and made a very relatable request.”
Even though this happened a few years ago, it’s a story worth repeating. Back in 2018, the two had been traveling in a black Range Rover through London when Charlotte, who would have been about three at the time, told her mum she had to go to the bathroom. “And mum Kate, like many parents before her, pulled up outside The Phoenix pub in Stockwell and walked in hand-in-hand with her daughter to ask if they could use the facilities,” The Daily Express reports. “Customers and staff were shocked at how normal they were.”
Pub regular Maggie McKinney said “I was sitting in my usual chair, and when I looked up I saw Kate Middleton—I mean the Duchess of Cambridge [her title back then]—and her daughter, Princess Charlotte. The little kiddie just trotted in with her mum, went to the toilet, and then trotted out. They could not have been in the pub for more than 10 minutes. They seem very nice, totally normal. Princess Kate was holding her daughter’s hand. Princess Charlotte was just any other little girl.”
And while that may be so, we don’t think many other little girls had a plain-clothed female detective from the Royal Protection Squad come into the pub to check the toilets before Kate and Charlotte arrived—but that’s exactly what happened here.
“A plain-clothed woman police officer came in first and checked the toilets,” another pub regular said of the unexpected royal visit. “Then the Duchess of Cambridge walked in holding Princess Charlotte’s hand. The little girl went to the loo and then they left. The policewoman sat by the bar while Princess Charlotte and Princess Kate were in the toilet.”
Hey, royal or not, “it just goes to show that the royals are like any other family,” another pub-goer said, per The Daily Express. “When your kid needs to go to the loo, they got to go!”
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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.
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