Several ex-servants have spoken about that very subject. It is not flattering to Charles. I get the sense he can be a very difficult person to work for.
It’s almost like if you spend an entire lifetime being told that you are a special type of human being that by virtue of his birth will one day be put in charge of all of those lesser humans who aren’t special like you, that tends to turn you into a rotten brat. I can’t imagine why…
In the past few years we have learned some very disturbing things about Andrew’s behavior. A stuffed toy collection is not one of them. John Cleese also has a stuffed toy collection.
While I don’t have anything against Mr. Cleese, nor I do think he’s involved in anything shifty like some other people (looks sideways at Andrew) I’m not entirely sure he should be held up as an example of “normal”. He’s got a few quirks himself, including an inordinate fondness of lemurs. (I mean that in a good way, of course.)
That still doesn’t make having stuffed toys disturbing. People who can afford to do so collect all kinds of things. Stuffed toys are pretty much the most benign thing I can think of.
It’s NOT the stuffed toy collection per se. It’s the compulsive arranging behavior, but far more importantly where he took it - the fact that he became verbally abusive to staff when they were weren’t properly positioned. That’s frankly deranged.
No one should get a pass on abusing employees, period. To abuse employees because of your own OCD hangup is even worse. You see a therapist or arrange them yourself. You don’t scream at someone because one of 72 stuffed toys is out of precise order on a bed.
Beyond that I was alluding to his other pressing issues as well.
Diana was the daughter of an Earl and her non royal social circle included celebrities from film and Tv, fashion designers and top pro athletes. Not exactly “normal people”. Frankly, Charles, who served 7 years in the Navy, and actually went to Uni, would be the better parent for that.
As for Charles, he has lost his mother and he also has a camera on him all the time. A camera will record and replay the one or two times you were petulant. It will ignore the 998 times you were perfectly lovely.
The protection officers who worked with Charles and Diana have said that he was perfectly lovely and she was a nightmare. FWIW.
Yes. This is exactly what I was alluding to. Good heavens, I have plenty of stuffed animals myself (plus, a disturbingly large collection of dachshund figures of all makes).
^ Really, THAT is the really disturbing part, not the collecting. Collecting isn’t universal but it’s common enough to be normal. It’s the compulsiveness that is the creepy part, the demand for such exacting arrangement.
Different people, different viewpoints.
I know people who find my current bosses absolutely horrible people. I, on the other hand, find them some of the most reasonable people I’ve ever worked for.
Compulsive behavior, especially among collectors, is common. It’s not an indication of some sinister source.
In our society, we allow people in power and employers to be abusive. That’s part of the system that we have created. Sure, that makes someone unlikable. But I wouldn’t call that disturbing. I’d call it typical of a privileged asshole.
On the other hand, Andrew’s relationship with Epstein, and his behavior in that context, that is legitimately disturbing.
There is nothing that compells a person to be abusive to those in their employ. To do so is a choice. Choosing to be abusive is what makes a person unlikable (or even criminal).
Behaving like a typical privileged asshole is in my view qualitatively different from “disturbing.” It certainly doesn’t indicate to me that such a person is necessarily deranged in some other way. I’m going to leave it at that.
I view it as being on a spectrum of behavior.
Charles grew up having protection officers and was content to follow security protocols. Diana didn’t and would try to ditch her detail and go places incognito. It’s a different scenario for domestic staff.
Prince Andrew’s association with Epstein is disturbing. What he did as a result of that association hasn’t, to my knowledge, come fully to light. It should.
Collecting stuffed animals per se isn’t disturbing as long as the animals weren’t underage. What went on behind closed doors of the teddy bear room is not known.
You Americans are just so amazingly into the royals cult of celebrity, aren’t you.
Astounding.
Almost like one of your own circle, with a couple of rough edges.
Just think, if it wasn’t for a bit of unpleasantry you could have still had your own.
Ewww, no. Somebody else’s royals, like somebody else’s tame hippos, are far preferable to having your own. You get to watch all their interesting behavior and high-drama consequences, and you don’t have to deal with all their shit or the burden of actually being responsible for them.
Yeah, it’s not like we have any of that here.
It’s kinduva a morbid fascination. Like, ick, they still do things like that???
Oh we certainly do, of course, but we don’t need to make it worse by adding actual homegrown royalty into the mix. (And in the process completely shafting the noble egalitarian aims of our nation’s democratic enterprise, which are still pretty noble no matter how shittily we tend to live up to them IRL.)