Back in December, when the royal family were travelling to Buckingham Palace to meet Prince Harry’s fiancé Meghan Markle for the first time (ostensibly dressed up as the Queen’s annual Christmas luncheon), one obscure member caused controversy for her unusual and offensive dress choice. Princess Michael of Kent, the wife of the Queen’s cousin Prince Michael, was photographed arriving at the celebrations wearing a blackamoor brooch, a racist piece of jewellery depicting African slaves.
Now, the Princess has faced further allegations of racism from the ex-boyfriend of her daughter Gabriella Windsor, who have revealed all to Vanity Fair. Aatish Taseer, who is of Indian and Pakistani descent, dated Windsor for three years in the early 2000s, and has some unpleasant insights into the Princess’s attitudes.
He revealed that the Princess had two black sheep, which she named Venus and Serena, after the famous tennis pro sisters: ‘[She]invited trouble out of what felt like a desire to shock: her pair of black sheep in Gloucestershire were named Venus and Serena.’
He also wrote about her reaction to another racism controversy back in 2004, when she was reported to have told a group of people of colour to ‘go back to the colonies’ because they were talking loudly in a restaurant she was dining at.
He writes of the episode: ‘I would never have said that,’ she later confided to me. ‘I’m a historian. I know that America itself was a colony.’ She feigned an odd mixture of injustice and contrition: ‘I daren’t even say I want my coffee black anymore. I say, ‘Without milk.’
Buckingham Palace have not commented on the claims, while a spokesperson for Princess Michael of Kent has said she won’t be addressing them.