Queen Elizabeth 'Always Detested' Camilla Parker Bowles—Charles Biographer

Queen Elizabeth II "always detested" Camilla Parker Bowles and only agreed to give her blessing for the royal to be known as "Queen Consort" because of an "unspoken deal behind the scenes" over Prince Andrew, King Charles III's biographer told Newsweek's Royal Report podcast.

Christopher Andersen, author of the new biography The King: The Life of Charles III, told Newsweek chief royal correspondent Jack Royston and royal commentator Kristen Meinzer that one of the new monarch's primary tasks is to "sell Britain on Camilla," his second wife after Princess Diana.

Camilla, now Queen Camilla or the Queen Consort, met Charles in the 1970s, and from then on the couple had an on-and-off relationship. During his marriage to Diana, which began in 1981, Charles admitted to committing adultery when his marriage had become "irrevocably broken down." In a 1995 BBC Panorama interview, Diana said of Camilla, "Well, there were three of us in this marriage. So it was a bit crowded."

After Diana's death in a 1997 Paris car crash, Charles and Camilla went public with their relationship and eventually married in 2005.

"His first job is to sell Britain on Camilla," Andersen told Royston and Meinzer while speaking about the challenges Charles faces as he begins his reign.

"I realize that the public attitude has softened toward her a bit over the years, but not a lot. As recently as November [last year], there was a YouGov poll that showed that only 14 percent of people in Great Britain were willing to accept her as queen," he said.

Andersen went on to discuss what he described as a subsequent "deal that was worked out—kind of very subtle and unspoken deal behind the scenes—that resulted in the queen suddenly endorsing Camilla. It's something that she resisted doing for many, many years, and it involved a kind of quid pro quo."

Elizabeth's relationship with Camilla, before she married Charles and then as a daughter-in-law, has been widely speculated about. In the early years of Charles' relationship with her, the queen reportedly regarded Camilla with caution. That grew to a total distancing following Diana's death, but the queen began warming up toward her in the later years of her life.

"The queen always detested Camilla," Andersen said. "The Queen Mother particularly detested Camilla because she was throwing a wrench in the works. Because of Camilla, the monarchy was kind of brought to the brink of destruction.

"Charles would not give up Camilla, and as a result, well, we know what happened with all the scandals and whatnot," he continued. "So when Diana died, Camilla was blamed by a lot of people for the situation which resulted in Diana's death, and Camilla became the most hated woman in England, if not the world, for a while there."

Following the princess's death, a palace spin operation titled "Operation PB" (Parker Bowles) was reportedly enacted in an attempt to rehabilitate the image of the woman in Charles' life.

"It took eight years for Charles to finally convince everybody to accept Camilla as his wife, to convince the queen to allow him to marry Camilla. He had to jump through all those hoops," Andersen told Meinzer.

As part of this, "he promised he would never make Camilla queen, that she would be princess consort," Andersen said. "I knew from the beginning...that that would never happen, that he loves her too much to insult her in that way and that he always intended to make Camilla queen.

"He lobbied Queen Elizabeth for 17 years to make that happen, and she resisted it, not because she disliked Camilla—because she kind of warmed up to her a bit—but because she knew the vast majority of people in the country would find it distasteful and it would be a problem for the monarchy," the author said.

Things changed, according to Andersen, when Charles was able to lobby for Camilla's elevated title during the troubles Prince Andrew faced in early 2022 over a sexual assault lawsuit lodged against him by Virginia Giuffre, who has said she was a victim of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Although the prince denied the allegations against him, he settled the suit out of court.

"The only way that Charles ever had any leverage came about earlier this year when suddenly Prince Andrew had to cough up $14 million in his Jeffrey Epstein sexual abuse civil case, and he didn't have the money," Andersen said.

"The queen—viewing Andrew as her favorite child, which she always has—wanted to pay part of it, and Charles could have spoken out," he said.

According to Andersen, Charles was "the person really responsible for getting Andrew drummed out of the family because of his activities in the Epstein affair, and suddenly it was brought up behind the scenes that yes, wouldn't this be the perfect time for the queen, if she doesn't want Charles to speak up, to endorse Camilla wholesomely and finally. And that did happen, and everyone was taken aback."

In February 2022, the queen said on the 70th anniversary of her accession to the throne: "When, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes king, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me. And it is my sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service."

As a result, there has been little opposition to Camilla taking on that title after the queen's death in September.

Third-quarter polling results by YouGov show that Camilla has a 44 percent popularity rating with the British public, on par with her husband. By contrast, Queen Elizabeth II had 73 percent, Kate Middleton 66 percent and Prince William 65 percent.

Newsweek has reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment.

The King: The Life of Charles III by Christopher Andersen will be published Tuesday by Simon & Schuster's Gallery Books.

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