Inside the British royal family's most scandalous summer vacation spots
The British royal family's summer vacations are typically kept private. But over the years, their go-to destinations have made headlines. And it turns out they don't just go to Balmoral, their Scottish estate, to reflect and spend time with loved ones.
"There have been many incidents of royal recreations which have raised eyebrows in the past," Ian Pelham Turner told Fox News Digital. "In the 1950s, Prince Philip regularly went on sailing trips to New Guinea, Ceylon and Malaysia for three months at a time, allegedly with female secretaries, leaving the queen alone in London."
"Balmoral was always the official favorite for the royals and the queen chose [to spend] her last days there," he shared. "[But] there were many [past] stories of girls rushing up to [the former Prince] Charles in skimpy bikinis when he was a bachelor visiting Australia."
Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams pointed out that Prince Harry's escapades in Sin City are still legendary.
"Prince Harry's naked cavorting in Las Vegas was the perfect advertisement for the city – 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,'" Fitzwilliams told Fox News Digital. "[The city] reportedly benefited from the publicity enormously."
Harry wrote about his 2012 trip to Las Vegas in his explosive 2023 memoir "Spare," Vanity Fair reported. According to the Duke of Sussex, after a night of gambling and boozing, his pals invited a group of "dodgy" women to his luxurious suite.
"I suggested we up the stakes," Harry wrote, as quoted by the outlet. "How about a game of strip pool? Enthusiastic cheers. Ten minutes later I was the big loser, reduced to my skivvies. Then I lost my skivvies. It was harmless, silly, or so I thought."
WATCH: PRINCESS DIANA'S BODYGUARD LEE SANSUM RECALLS HOW YOUNG PRINCE WILLIAM AND PRINCE HARRY REACTED TO THE PAPARAZZI
The photos from the night were posted on TMZ. And while Harry was expecting his father, King Charles, to reprimand him, he was "gentle, even bemused."
"He felt for me, he said, he'd been there, though he'd never been naked on a front page," Harry wrote. "Actually, that was untrue. When I was about 8 years old, a German newspaper had published naked photos of him, taken with a telephoto lens while he was holidaying in France."
But several royal experts agreed that Harry wasn't the royal family's most well-known for escapades across the pond – it was the late queen's younger sister, Princess Margaret. Her lady-in-waiting's husband, Lord Colin Tennant, spent vast amounts of his fortune on transforming Mustique, a tiny island in the Caribbean, into a party resort for the rich and famous. He gifted Margaret a 10-acre plot of land on the island.
"Princess Margaret's scandalous affair with 'toy boy' turned wannabe disco star Roddy Llewellyn also unfolded on Mustique," Vanity Fair reported. "In 1976, photos of the couple frolicking on Mustique (Llewellyn wearing Union Jack swimming trunks) were published in The News of the World, hastening Margaret's separation from equally unfaithful husband Antony Armstrong-Jones."
Over the years, other royals have found themselves in hot water. Vanity Fair reported that the "most notorious vacation mishap in modern royal history" took place in 1992. Sarah, Duchess of York, who had separated from Prince Andrew, was soaking up the sun in St. Tropez with her beau, financier John Bryan. It was there where paparazzi snapped photos of Bryan sucking on her toes while she sunbathed topless.
Sarah and Andrew's divorce was finalized in 1996.
"Recently, there haven't been any scandals," British royals expert Hilary Fordwich told Fox News Digital. "But back in 2012… the topless photo scandal involving Kate Middleton… was considered in such poor taste that the media has stayed away from such [stories] in general."
In 2012, the French magazine Closer and the local newspaper La Provence published photos taken with telephoto lenses of the future Princess of Wales sunbathing topless with Prince William at a château in France, Glamour magazine reported. According to the outlet, the couple sued and were later awarded $118,000 in damages by a French court.
While the royal family's vacations don't always take place during the steamy season, they are known for letting their hair down when duty doesn't call.
According to Vanity Fair, the Prince and Princess of Wales, now parents of three young children, also enjoy embarking on family trips to Mustique, the Isles of Scilly, the ski resort of Courchevel in France, as well as Jordan, where Kate spent a part of her childhood.
"By all accounts, Prince William and Catherine are such upstanding royals that they simply aren't involved in any scandals," Fordwich added.
For William and Harry, Africa has been a destination for love. Prince William proposed to Kate in Kenya in 2010. Harry and his then-girlfriend, Meghan Markle, traveled to his beloved Botswana in 2017.
"I gave her my best Botswana pitch," Harry wrote in "Spare," as quoted by Vanity Fair. "Birthplace of all humankind. Most sparsely populated nation on Earth. True Garden of Eden, with 40 percent of the land given over to nature. Plus, the largest number of elephants of any nation on Earth. Above all, it was the place where I'd found myself, where I always re-found myself, where I always felt close to – magic? If she was interested in magic, she should come with me, experience it with me."
Since the couple tied the knot in 2018, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have reportedly vacationed in Costa Rica, Canouan in the Caribbean, as well as Elton John's home in Nice.
"We look forward to hearing how they vacation in their reported holiday home in Portugal," said Fitzwilliams.
Harry is said to have bittersweet memories of the south of France. In July 1997, his mother, Princess Diana, was photographed in St. Tropez on the Jonikal, Mohamed Al-Fayed's yacht. A month later, the Princess of Wales died from injuries she sustained in a Paris car crash at age 36.
According to the outlet, Diana was known to use her getaway during the last year of her life to bargain with paparazzi, who were eager to take photos of her in stylish swimsuits. It's been said that Diana wanted to show the public that she was free after her divorce from Charles was finalized in 1996.
"There was much laughter, horseplay, the norm whenever Mummy and Willy and I were together, though even more so on that holiday," Harry recalled in "Spare," as quoted by the outlet.
"Everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven. The weather was sublime, the food was tasty, Mummy was smiling."
In recent years, Charles appears to be focusing on cost. While he still maintains his late mother's tradition of spending his summers in Balmoral, Buckingham Palace announced that the king will end 156 years of service for the Royal Train. The palace noted it costs too much to operate and would need a significant upgrade for more advanced rail systems.
"It is a pity this did not happen in the 1990s," said Fitzwilliams. "The Royal Yacht Britannia, which was decommissioned in 1997, should have been saved... It was famously used for the royal family's summer holiday when Queen Elizabeth could relax at her beloved Balmoral. This became a rite of passage for members of the royal family."
"A royal favorite was the Britannia," chimed Turner. "It was one of the few times the queen was seen to shed a tear when it was decommissioned due to cutbacks in finances."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Ncuti Gatwa quit Doctor Who for taking a ‘physical, emotional and mental' toll on him
Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa has revealed that he quit the show as the role was taking a toll on his body, both mentally and physically. The 32-year-old, Rwandan-Scottish actor, surprisingly departed the BBC sci-fi show earlier this year following the conclusion of his second season in the role. During his final episode, which was broadcast on 31 May, Gatwa's Doctor regenerated and appeared to be replaced by former Doctor Who star Billie Piper. Speaking on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show (13 July), Gatwa admitted: 'I'm getting old, and my body was tired… and I've now just started doing some ballet, so I'm making really great decisions. He added: 'It's the most amazing job in the world, a job that any actor would dream of and – because it's so good – it's strenuous. It takes a lot out of you, physically, emotionally, mentally, and so it was time.' Asked if he would ever come back to the show, he said: 'Never say never.' Barbie star Gatwa has played the Doctor since David Tennant's second run as the Time Lord bi-generated in 2023. Gatwa also addressed why he pulled out of being the UK's spokesperson at the Eurovision Song Contest in May. Speculation had arisen that his decision was connected to controversy surrounding Israel's participation in the competition. 'It all panned out very interestingly. I pulled out of it a long time before it was announced', he said. And it was announced when it was announced, I don't know why, but I was just very busy. 'Just had a lot of work schedules, a lot of press around The Roses, around Doctor (Who).' Asked about the speculation surrounding his withdrawal, Gatwa, who did not watch this year's competition, said: 'I was just very busy.' The actor appeared on the Sunday morning news show to discuss the West End premiere of Born With Teeth, a play that re-imagines the relationship between rival playwrights Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. Gatwa plays Marlowe with his Sex Education co-star Edward Bluemel as Shakespeare in the Royal Shakespeare Company production at London's Wyndham's Theatre from August. 'It's a really great story between these two huge literary icons, and it's very exciting to imagine what could have happened in a room together', he said. Additional reporting by PA.
Gizmodo
2 hours ago
- Gizmodo
How to Watch Sinner vs Alcaraz on a Free Channel: 2025 Wimbledon Final
July 13th marks the end of this year's Wimbledon. Are you excited to watch Sinner vs. Alcaraz for free online? It's one of the top duels this year. Alcaraz defeated Fritz, while Sinner convincingly eliminated Djokovic in the semi-finals. Sinner and Alcaraz, two of the world's top players, are meeting once again to gauge their strengths. If you don't want to miss this heart-pounding clash, here's how to stream the 2025 Wimbledon men's final on a free channel. Let's explain where to find it. While many paid channels broadcast Wimbledon, most people opt for free channels. BBC iPlayer, the BBC's video-on-demand service, allows you to watch Sinner vs Alcaraz online for free. How to do it? You go to BBC iPlayer (link: sign up (it's 100% free) or sign in, and enjoy the match when it starts. BBC iPlayer doesn't require a paid subscription. Moreover, it's in English and offers Full HD coverage of all Wimbledon matches. Watch Sinner vs Alcaraz With NordVPN Some people also use 9Now (link: an Australian platform. 9Now works identically. It requires an account, which costs nothing to make. This account lets you stream Sinner vs Alcaraz live for free. The problem with both is their availability. As you can likely assume, BBC iPlayer and 9Now work only in the UK and Australia, respectively. If you're abroad, there's a reliable solution to unblock them and watch the match. Many internet users believe VPNs are ideal options for unblocking BBC iPlayer and 9Now abroad. They often mention NordVPN, which is like Apple in the VPN world—the most popular and beloved option. NordVPN offers 440+ servers in the UK and 190+ servers in Australia. It also has unlimited bandwidth and some of the best streaming speeds. However, its primary purpose is to change the user's online location. Geo-restricted channels detect the user's IP and block or permit their access. A user abroad can connect to NordVPN's UK server and obtain a British IP address for BBC iPlayer. Similarly, they can use an Australian VPN server to get an Australian IP address for 9Now. NordVPN effortlessly unblocks both channels. Many would argue that NordVPN is a paid service, and they'd be right. However, people often use its 30-day money-back guarantee to get a refund. This means they can watch Sinner vs Alcaraz on a free channel of their choice, and when the match ends, get a full refund the same day. Don't hesitate to check our article on how to get a NordVPN free trial for more details. This renders the solution free. However, some people stick with the VPN and use it for cheaper online sports streams. Ultimately, it's up to you to decide. Our trick works regardless of your location. This means you can be in Asia or Africa and still use a VPN to watch Sinner vs Alcaraz on a free channel. Many other channels and platforms broadcast this match if you don't want to bother with a VPN. In the USA, you have: These three are exclusive to the USA, with hefty price tags and no refund policies. People abroad can use a VPN to watch Hulu, Sling TV, or fuboTV, albeit not sign up, as all three require US-based credit cards. Canadians can't watch Sinner vs Alcaraz live for free, but they can use TSN Plus if they don't mind subscribing. TSN Plus costs a whopping CAD $80 + tax annually or CAD $8 + tax monthly, and there is no refund policy. More importantly, TSN Plus is Canada-exclusive, so users abroad are unwelcome, unless they use a VPN. Many channels worldwide stream the match, but the only free, English options are BBC iPlayer and 9Now. Try NordVPN Risk-Free According to the H2H results, Carlos Alcaraz is a favorite. So far, the two best players clashed twelve times; Janik Sinner took four, while Carlos Alcaraz took eight matches. Interestingly, Alcaraz has beaten Sinner five times in a row, from 2024 to 2025. Sinner's last victory was in 2023. As you know, H2H statistics rarely give us the whole picture. We're discussing two magnificent, young talents likely at their apex. Regardless of your favorite, we know this Wimbledon final will be worth watching.
Buzz Feed
2 hours ago
- Buzz Feed
Famous Actors Who Dumped Their Spouses For Costars
In late 2016, Ewan McGregor — who had been married to Eve Mavrakis for 22 years — joined the cast of FX's third season of Fargo, playing the dual role of the Stussy brothers, one of whom was lovers with Nikki, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who was also married. Well, life imitated art as photos emerged in October 2017 of McGregor and Winstead kissing and getting cuddly at a London restaurant. The previous May, McGregor had separated from his wife (though they were still legally married), and — wouldn't you know it? — that same month, Winstead announced the end of her marriage. It's unknown if McGregor and Winstead's relationship began, shall we May, or if they just developed a strong, non-intimate bond on either way there was a lot of drama online in the immediate aftermath of the couple being publicly outed. McGregor's then-22-year-old daughter Clara called Winstead a "piece of trash" on Instagram, but, in an interview with the Times, said it wasn't her "finest moment," adding, "It wasn't the right way to go about things, but it's a hard thing to wrap your head around when you feel you had this idea of what the family unit is and then to have that shift. It's very weird." Mavrakis, meanwhile, appeared to respond to a different Instagram comment which read: "I can't believe Ewan would end things with u for that cheap (expletive)! U are so much better than him!!!! Take him for every penny u can!!!!" by replying: "What can I do?" Winstead's ex-husband was also reported by British tabloids to have posted angrily about the split, although Riley Stearns strongly denied writing the message, saying he'd been hacked or that the image of the message circulating online (reading: "Fuck the woman of my dreams behind my back, will ya? @mewins @mscregor_ewan You're FUCKING dead…") had been photoshopped. All drama aside, McGregor and Winstead have since married and welcomed a son, and last year, when McGregor received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, his daughters, Winstead, and their son were all by his side. Want to hear how a Lifetime movie launched one of the most scandalous affairs of the late 2000s? Well, that's what happened when LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian met filming Northern Lights in 2008. At the time, Rimes (the singer and actor) was married to dancer Dean Sheremet, and Third Watch star Cibrian was married to Brandi Glanville, who would later channel the fallout into a Real Housewives career. The affair started on set — with kisses caught on a restaurant security camera, according to US magazine — and was obvious to Sheremet when he visited. He said, "There was this bar that everyone hung out at after set and I remember coming down the stairs and seeing the two of them shooting pool together. I could just tell by the body language that everything had changed. My stomach dropped... I literally felt like I got hit." Glanville, meanwhile, slashed the tires of Cibrian's motorcycles, and then, writing for Glamour, said, "My heartache probably lasted a lot longer than it should have, because in the old days, you broke up with someone, you never saw me again. You're not seeing pictures of how in love they are. I started to drink too much. I would cry all day. I began taking an antidepressant. I got a DUI and realized I needed to wake up and let go. I said to myself, 'You know what, Brandi? You have a life to live. Why are you obsessing over these two people?'" By 2009, Rimes and Cibrian had separated from their spouses, finalizing divorces the following year. The backlash was brutal, especially for Rimes, who'd built her career as a sweet country ingénue, and was suddenly painted in a negative light. She later told People, "I did one of the most selfish things that I possibly could do, in hurting someone else. I take responsibility for everything I've done. I hate that people got hurt, but I don't regret the outcome." Despite the scandalous start, their love has are still married today. Let's continue with a wild one (even if it didn't break up a marriage). In the late '90s, Billy Bob Thornton and Laura Dern were in a serious relationship and even lived together. But then Thornton was cast alongside Angelina Jolie in the air traffic controller comedy Pushing Tin. While filming, Thornton and the nearly 20 years younger Jolie hit it off, and in May 2000, they married in Vegas in a move that shocked everyone, but no one more than Laura Dern. She told Talk magazine, "I left our home to work on a movie (likely the Hallmark movie A Season for Miracles) and while I was away, my boyfriend got married. I've never heard from him again. It's like a sudden death. You don't get to mourn or negotiate." Meanwhile, the Thornton-Jolie relationship They wore vials of each other's blood around their necks, made out on red carpets (and bragged about having sex in the limo on the way over), and gave interviews that made even hardened publicists need a vacation. The couple divorced in 2003. As for Dern, she went on to win an Oscar for Marriage Story, star in Big Little Lies, and become pretty universally beloved. She also married (and later divorced) musician Ben Harper, with whom she has two kids. You'd think Jolie would've sworn off romances with taken costars after her experience with Thornton, but in 2004, she met Brad Pitt — who was married to Friends icon Jennifer Aniston — on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Rumors immediately swirled about an on-set affair, but Jolie and Pitt denied them, insisting they were just costars who got along well. Hmmm. However, just months after Pitt and Aniston announced their separation in January 2005 after five years of marriage, Pitt and Jolie were filmed on a beach in Kenya with Maddox, her adopted son. The stars, of course, would marry and have six kids together. Did Aniston buy Pitt's claim that he didn't cheat on her before they separated? "I choose to believe my husband," she told Vanity Fair at the time. "At this point, I wouldn't be surprised by anything, but I would much rather choose to believe him." Aniston's Friends costar and IRL pal Courteney Cox also told Vanity Fair, "I don't think he started an affair physically, but I think he was attracted to her. There was a connection, and he was honest about that with Jen. Most of the time, when people are attracted to other people, they don't tell. At least he was honest about it. It was an attraction that he fought for a period of time." Pitt and Jolie were together for over a decade, but divorced just two years after tying the knot following a dramatic airplane incident where Jolie alleged that an inebriated Pitt physically accosted her and the children. Pitt, for his part, denies he got physical with his family. Regardless, the marriage was over. In 2002, The Devil Wears Prada star Stanley Tucci costarred with Edie Falco (you know, from The Sopranos) on Broadway in the play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune which required them to be naked onstage, portraying people who had just had a sexual encounter. But the nudity, it seems, didn't stay onstage. Rumors grew that the stars were having a real-life affair, and soon after, Tucci separated from Kate Spath, his wife since 1995, with whom he shared three children. Whatever was going on with Tucci and Falco didn't last, though, and Tucci reconciled with his wife. Falco later addressed the affair with the New York Times, saying, "We were together and then we broke up. Because there's no way for that to be a good thing. He's a lovely man, and he's back with his wife and kids, and I'm thrilled." Other than that, neither Tucci nor Falco has spoken about their affair. Sadly, Spath died of breast cancer in 2009 at age 47. In 2003, Billy Crudup — the star of Almost Famous and The Morning Show — was eight years into a relationship with Mary-Louise Parker (you know, from Weeds), who was pregnant with their first child. But when the 35-year-old actor stepped onto the set of Stage Beauty and met his 24-year-old costar Claire Danes, well, by now so you know what happened. Soon Crudup left his seven-month pregnant partner, and Danes, for good measure, left her boyfriend, Australian musician Ben Lee. As you can imagine, Crudup's leaving a woman pregnant with his child for a much younger woman wasn't popular, and both Crudup and Danes took a lot of hits in the public eye. In a 2015 Howard Stern interview, Danes addressed the scandal, saying, 'I was just in love with him and needed to explore that, and I was 24... I didn't quite know what those consequences would be... But it's OK...I went through it.' Crudup, meanwhile, was asked to comment about the gossip in a 2004 New York Times interview. He wrote to the reporter: "First and foremost, it is personal, painful and involves an infant, and does not deserve to be exploited to sate the appetites of circulation counters and bored readers. I have never indulged our society's misguided notion that my personal life is relevant to my work, so any reporting surrounding that is necessarily hearsay, speculation or fantasy. Each published report is based only on the trade of suffering." Crudup and Danes broke up in 2006, and Danes met her now husband Hugh Dancy that same year. She and Dancy have been together for 19 years and have three children. Crudup is also now in a long-term relationship, married to actor Naomi Watts, whom he met in 2016. And if you're wondering about Mary-Louise Parker, she has maintained a dignified silence on the experience for the sake of her son, William (yes, named after Billy), who is now 21 and a filmmaker. She added a second child to her family in 2007, adopting a baby girl, Caroline. And lastly, let's go back in time for one of the most infamous Hollywood scandals ever. In the early 1960s, 20th Century Fox set out to make Cleopatra, a lavish historical epic starring Elizabeth Taylor as the Egyptian queen. If you've heard about it today, it's likely because it was a runaway production that ended up the most expensive movie ever made at the time, costing the equivalent of nearly $500 million today. But what really blew up wasn't the budget — it was the affair that exploded on set. When shooting began in Rome, Taylor was married to singer Eddie Fisher, and her costar, Richard Burton, who played Mark Antony, was married to actor Sybil Williams. The two had CHEMISTRY playing onscreen lovers, and according to director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the chemistry wasn't just for the cameras. He reportedly warned producer Walter Wanger: "Liz and Burton are not just playing Antony and Cleopatra." By spring 1962, the tabloids smelled blood in the water, and confirmed the rumored romance when paparazzi (yes, they were causing trouble back then, too!) photographed Taylor and Burton canoodling on a yacht off the coast of Ischia. Both marriages fell apart in short time. Sybil Williams filed for divorce, citing "abandonment and cruel and inhumane treatment." And Fisher, who had infamously left his wife Debbie Reynolds for Taylor just a few years earlier, got to see what it felt like. (Side note: Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds were the parents of Carrie Fisher, aka Princess Leia.)Taylor and Burton went on to marry in 1964, divorce in 1974, remarry in 1975 (!!!), and finally called it quits for good in 1976. Taylor once said about their relationship: "When you are in love and lust like that… you just grab it with both hands and ride out the storm." Well, OK then.
