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LONDON – Britain’s Prince George’s 9th birthday was celebrated on Friday with the release of a new photo showing the young royal in baby blue and beaming from ear to ear.
The photo was taken this month on an undisclosed beach in Norfolk, eastern England, where his parents the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have a home as part of Queen Elizabeth II’s sprawling Sandringham estate, according to Kensington Palace.
George, third in line to the British throne, is pictured with his mother, Catherine, with a huge grin.
It has become an annual tradition for William and Catherine’s children’s birthdays to be marked by the public release of photographs, usually taken by the Duchess.
The young royals are generally kept out of the public eye, but this year, as the nation celebrated their great-grandmother’s platinum jubilee in June, marking her 70th reign, they attended a series of public events.
George’s younger brother, Prince Louis, captured hearts and international headlines after his emotional display on the Buckingham Palace balcony amid the pomp. Spending memes and online parodies, young Louis was seen making cheeky faces, cupping his hands over his ears, waving and yawning while his mother tried to tidy up.
Prince George was born to much fanfare on July 22, 2013, as reporters and pundits waited outside London’s St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington to catch a glimpse of the royal couple’s firstborn child and heir.
Christened George Alexander Louis a few months later, he is formally known as Prince George of Cambridge. He became a brother in 2015 with the birth of Princess Charlotte and Louis in 2018.
George was last seen at the Wimbledon men’s tennis final in July, watching with his parents from the royal box as Serbia’s Novak Djokovic defeated Australia’s Nick Kyrgios at the south-west London club.
George’s birthday was celebrated on the front page of many British newspapers – but a more controversial royal story about his late grandmother, Princess Diana, also dominated Friday’s coverage.
The BBC said on Thursday it would pay former nanny to William and Prince Harry, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, now known as Alexandra Pettifer, “considerable damages” for “false and malicious” allegations made against her, including an affair with her Prince Charles and an abortion, as part of BBC journalist Martin Bashir’s bid for an exclusive interview.
The explosive BBC interview, which aired in 1995, stunned the world for its candor and insight into Diana’s miserable marriage to Prince Charles. In the interview, Diana told a TV audience that “there were three of us in this marriage” — referring to Charles’ relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles, now his wife. Years later, an independent investigation concluded that Bashir had used forged documents and “fraudulent conduct” to plan a crucial meeting that led to the interview.
The interview drew public criticism from William and Harry, while Bashir has since left the BBC due to ill health.
The BBC reporter used “fraudulent behavior” to secure an interview with Princess Diana in 1995, according to the inquiry
Diana’s brother Charles Spencer welcomed Thursday’s news. tweet: “While I am pleased to see another innocent victim of this appalling scandal being rehabilitated, I am amazed that no criminal charges have been brought against those responsible.”
The interview was “a result of the BBC’s fraudulent tactics,” BBC Director General Tim Davie confirmed on Thursday. “I would like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to her [Pettifer]The Prince of Wales and the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex for the manner in which Princess Diana was deceived and the resulting impact on their lives.”
Davie said the BBC failed Diana, the royal family and the public. As a result, he added: “I have decided that the BBC will never show the program again; Nor will we license it in whole or in part to other broadcasters.”