King Charles, who accedes to the throne after Queen Elizabeth’s death on Thursday, is far less popular than the sovereign with extraordinary longevity. The latest Yougov poll gives him a popularity rating of 42%, compared to 75% for the late monarch. And in 2021, only 11% of Britons polled in an Ipsos Mori poll named him as their favorite royal member.
However, Charles has managed, in recent years, to restore his image with the public, catastrophic at the time of his divorce from Diana in 1996. In 1997, after the death of the princess, Charles saw his popularity rating collapse. at 4%. The previous years, during which the Prince and Princess of Wales were torn apart under the greedy gaze of the tabloids and through interviews, had been very unfavorable for Charles.
“A middle-aged man in a gray suit”
At that time, it was Diana who was favored by the public. She is the “princess of hearts”, “the people’s princess”.
“The media sided with Diana” for “commercial” reasons, estimated Penny Judor, biographer of the royal family in the Red Line dedicated to Carlos in May 2021. In fact, a photo of Carlos sold much less than a photo of Diana.
“Charles was a middle-aged man in a gray suit. Diana was beautiful, she was young, she wore fabulous clothes with a great figure.”
And then the public blames Charles for the failure of their marriage. Especially since he admitted, in 1994, having had an affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, the love of his youth, meeting before Diana and marrying someone else.
“Diana’s years are a burden for him,” explained this Saturday on BFMTV Jérôme Carron, senior reporter for Point de vue magazine.
The prince is depressed but endures. It will take a well-targeted communication campaign to slowly restore his image. He promises not to marry again and for once follows the recommendations of his advisers, not showing himself in public with Camila. But he only has one goal: to get them to accept her.
“He never strayed from his line,” explains Jérôme Carron. “He always explained that Camilla would be a non-negotiable part of her existence, according to the formula he used with her mother at the time of the tensions linked to the divorce between him and Diana.”
The most hated woman in England
Following Diana’s death, the Prince of Wales embarks on a rehabilitation operation and hires a brilliant communicator. He takes his sons William and Harry on official trips or on vacations, meets the Spice Girls, is more approachable… A few years later, he even manages, thanks to good communication, to get them to accept Camilla Parker-Bowles, the The most hated woman in England. They first appeared in public in 1999.
“Camilla is becoming a new product,” Marc Roche deciphered in May 2021 on the Red Line about Carlos.
“She is no longer the ex-lover, but the one that the prince should have married from the beginning and was not allowed to marry out of duty of state. And she has this right to happiness.”
If Camilla has managed, through hard work, patience and discretion, to win the hearts of the public over the years, the couple’s popularity remains fragile. In November 2020, the fourth season of the series. The crown, which delves behind the scenes of the marriage of Carlos and Diana, has thus reopened the wounds and revived the harshness of the public. In fact, Charles is represented there as the main architect of Diana’s misfortune. Callous, cruel and cold, he lets his young wife sink into depression.
“A Slander”
“The way in which Charles is represented is a slander,” they have also denounced, according to the T.imesprince’s friends
A few months later, Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, in March 2021, in turn shakes the popularity of the future king. Prince Harry, recently installed in California, after having resigned from his functions within the royal family, confides there that he is “disappointed” by his father and says that he refused to answer his phone calls.
Worse still, Meghan Markle accuses, without citing anyone, the royal family of racism, and recounts “concerns and conversations” about the skin color of her unborn child, when she was pregnant with Archie, born in May 2019. Eyes quickly turn to Charles. . Especially since Meghan Markle praises the queen in the same interview, and Oprah points out a few days later that neither Queen Elizabeth II nor her husband participated in these conversations about the baby’s skin color. “We are not a racist family at all,” says Prince William.
“A big challenge”
Overshadowed by the popularity of the new Prince of Wales, his son Prince William, King Charles was nonetheless able to reach out to the public through his commitment to ecology.
Charles has “an extraordinary possibility of sweeping away this whole image as a king, depending on the decisions he makes, on how he will embody his reign”, analyzes Jérôme Carron. “It’s a big challenge for him. The image challenge is perhaps the most important. He has to embody this new royal beacon, previously embodied by his mother.”
Source: BFM TV
