The 2022 book, The Palace Papers, sheds light on King Charles III’s stringent travel demands. Journalist Tina Brown, a close pal of the late Princess of Wales, Diana, interviewed over 120 insiders and palace staff for the work, in which she laid bare some of the weird secrets of Charles, including his restroom requirements amongst other bizarre needs.
The monarch allegedly insists on carrying his own toilet seat and loo roll wherever he’s planned to travel. Brown also details in the book that the then-Prince of Wales sends his officials with a van full of his possessions to his friend’s house where he’s planned to stay, including his “orthopedic bed, lavatory seat, Kleenex Velvet lavatory paper, and even pictures.” He likes to create his own Scottish Highlands wherever he travels, The Mirror reported.
A documentary, Serving the Royals: Inside the Firm, also claimed that Charles is quite particular about his routine and things. Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, reveals, “His pajamas are pressed every morning, his shoelaces are pressed flat with an iron, the bath plug has to be in a certain position, and the water temperature has to be just tepid. He has his valets squeeze one inch of toothpaste onto his toothbrush every morning.”
The royal himself, on one occasion, addressed these rumors of carrying a toilet seat. While on a seven-day tour of Australia along with his wife and then-Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla, he was asked by a Hit105 host, “Is it true that you carry your own toilet seat when you travel?” Charles was taken aback, but answered, “My own what?… Oh, don’t believe all that c—p.” The radio host double-checked the rumors with Camilla, “So he doesn’t carry his own toilet seat when he travels?” She echoed, “Don’t you believe that,” as per People magazine.
But the reports of the royal’s idiosyncracies didn’t die down. Former royal chef, Darren McGrady, who worked with The Firm for over 15 years, revealed the King prefers he has “his own produce” in the pantry. “The instruction was to put two plums and a little juice into the bowl and send it to him for breakfast,” McGrady said in an interview.
He recounted, “I would send in two plums and he would take one so it would come back out after breakfast and I would put the other plum back into the jar and save it…One morning I thought, ‘Okay, he only eats one for breakfast,’ so I only put one plum into the bowl and sent it out into the dining room. The attending [waiter] came through and said, ‘Can His Royal Highness have two please?’ So, I had to keep sending two in every morning.”