Britain's Princess Michael of Kent has talked openly about her neighbours at Kensington Palace and revealed that Prince Harry might move in next door to William and Kate when the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester eventually quit their nearby apartment.
In an astonishingly loose-lipped interview with the January edition of the society bible Tatler, the Princess refers to Prince William as "the boy" and says she was behind the Cambridges' move into Princess Margaret's old apartment, adding that Kate would get "the wobblies" if she moved into Diana's old apartment.
In the article titled "Blonde Ambition" Princess Michael talks candidly. Asked about her new neighbours, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, she prattles, "Right where Princess Margaret was. And I know, I was very much behind that. Because it is the nicest apartment. The intelligence of the courtiers! ... When Princess Margaret died, they gave it to the museum [i.e. The Historic Royal Palaces]. And obviously the boy was going to marry one day. All right, it was 12 years ago, but one day he'd need the best apartment, surely. A lovely big garden, next to the Gloucesters who I think will leave their enormous apartment because their children have gone and mother's dead. And they're rattling round this huge space. And I think Prince Harry might go there, then they'd be next door to each other — very good move. And also, I thought she [Kate] would get the wobblies if she moved next door [to Princess Michael]. You know, with [the ghost of] Diana. ... And I might lose my garden. Anyway that apartment it's not the best. Whereas Princess Margaret's — wonderful. Huge private garden, you know. And they would open up the garden next door. I'm sure Harry wouldn't mind. It would work wonderfully."
Elsewhere in the interview Princess Michael claims that the late Lord Mountbatten arranged her 1978 marriage to Prince Michael. "You have no idea what lengths Mountbatten went to. Because I realised afterwards that Mountbatten thought I'd be good for my husband." She adds that she has told Prince Michael to marry again if she dies and has chosen three potential but unnamed replacements.
She and Prince Michael are grandparents to Maud, the baby daughter of their son Lord Frederick Windsor and his wife actress Sophie Winkleman who live in LA. In mid-1980s Princess Michael was the bad girl of the Royal Family before Sarah Ferguson stole the show with her misdemeanours. "Princess Pushy," as she is known in the tabloids, is rather more sedate these days, writing her history books and delivering lectures, but she can still raise a laugh in the press — and a few eyebrows at Buckingham Palace.
