“Work-shy” Prince William? The now-Prince of Wales and Prince Harry both weren’t having that kind of criticism. How William responded to once being called a “reluctant royal.” Plus, why the Duke of Sussex labeled the dig as “grossly unfair” because of two things in his Spare memoir.
A journalist asked Prince William about being a ‘slightly reluctant royal’ in 2016
Shortly before the late Queen Elizabeth II turned 90 in 2016, William, then the Duke of Cambridge, sat down for a wide-ranging interview with the BBC. The network’s royal correspondent, Nicholas Witchell, asked a series of questions in what became a nearly 12-minute video.
At one point, the journalist addressed William’s “work-shy” nickname. “There is an impression in some quarters that you are in some ways a slightly reluctant royal,” Witchell said.
“You will have seen—or I’m sure people will have told you about—some of the stories, some of the headlines, in recent weeks and months, ‘Work-shy William’ I think some of them have said,” he continued.
Mentioning that Kate Middleton, then the Duchess of Cambridge, also came under fire for similar “criticism,” the interviewer asked William: ‘How do you respond to that? Do you regard that criticism, that impression, as being a fair one?”
Prince William didn’t ‘completely ignore’ the ‘work-shy’ comments or take them ‘completely to heart’
William replied, telling the interviewer while he acknowledged the “work-shy” nickname, he pretty much brushed it off.
“To be honest, I’m going to get plenty of criticism over my lifetime,” he said. “And it’s something that I don’t completely ignore, but it’s not something I take completely to heart.”
William continued, acknowledging that despite taking his duties “very seriously,” he’s “concentrating very much” on being a “new father.”
“I want to bring my children up as good people and with the idea of duty and service to others as very important,” he told the BBC. “But, if I can’t give my time to my children as well I worry about their future.”
William also noted that his soon-to-be expanding duties were ultimately set by Queen Elizabeth II.
Prince Harry called the ‘work-shy Wills’ nickname ‘obscene’ and ‘grossly unfair’ in his memoir
In addition to many searing comments about William, Harry explained in his best-selling memoir, Spare, which debuted in January 2023, why the “work-shy Wills” moniker wasn’t fair to the now-Prince of Wales. At the time, Harry noted, William had a growing family.
“The papers were awash with stories about Willy being lazy, and the press had taken to calling him ‘Work-shy Wills,’ which was obscene, grossly unfair,” Harry said (via Newsweek). Why? Because, as he shared, William “was busy having children and raising a family.”
Back then, the Prince and Princess of Wales weren’t yet the parents of three they are today. Instead, they were parents of one after welcoming now-9-year-old Prince George in 2013. They were also in the process of adding to their family. At the time, Kate was pregnant with a now-7-year-old, Princess Charlotte.
In addition to the family aspect, Harry explained how another element — money — factored in.
William “was still beholden to Pa, who controlled the purse strings,” Harry said in reference to their father, King Charles III. “He did as much as Pa wanted him to do, and sometimes that wasn’t much, because Pa and Camilla [Parker Bowles] didn’t want Willy and Kate getting loads of publicity.”
“Pa and Camilla,” he explained, “didn’t like Willy and Kate drawing attention away from them or their causes. They’d openly scolded Willy about it many times.”
Harry went on to cite a public appearance where Kate visited a tennis club on the same day the king and Camilla also had an official engagement. He claimed King Charles’ press officer “warned” against Kate holding a tennis racket.
“Such a winning, fetching photo would undoubtedly wipe Pa and Camilla off the front pages,” Harry said. “And that, in the end, couldn’t be tolerated.”
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