The Royals with Roya and Kate - Meghan and Harry delivery room dance, William reports for duty and presents to the royals revealed

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

This week, Roya and Kate unpack Meghan and Harry’s surprising dance in the delivery suite and Prince William’s flying visit as Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps, a role that was destined for Prince Harry. Plus, an emerging place for The Duchess of Edinburgh. What is Sophie's future role and is William quietly shifting the spotlight? The King Charles' punchy message to President Trump from Canada, and a look at royal gifts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, welcome back to The Royals with me, Roya Nikar. And me, Kate Mancy. Today we'll be looking back at the King's powerful speech in Canada last week, and a week of firsts for Prince William. But first... We couldn't start the Procost today without looking at a craze that's been all over TikTok for months, and now it's appeared on Meghan's Instagram. That's right, if the TikTok craze passed you by, this is a video that was put up on Meghan's

Instagram of her and Prince Harry dancing in what appears to be the delivery suite. And as little caption, Meghan writes, four years ago today, both of our children were a week past their due date. So when spicy food, all that walking and acupuncture didn't work, there was only one thing left to do. And this was posted on Lilybeth's fourth birthday, and appears to be Megan trying to get the party started with the delivery in the delivery suite.

There's twerking, Roya, I can see your face already. It's kind of bemusement and bafflement all at once. All of the B's when I first saw the clip drop. I thought it was a spoof when someone sent it to me. I had to check that it was genuinely her. I did check that it was genuinely her Instagram. It was quite something, wasn't it? It was quite unexpected, because the day sort of started with that lovely post of Megan and Lilibet on, it looked like they were on a boat, and Megan sort of wrapped around Lilibet, and you can just see her eyes and not much of her face, but you can see her from the front, which we don't normally see.

And a lovely sort of tribute. And then... And a picture of her newborn as well, and the kind of having the skin-on-skin time, which nurses and doctors doctors all recommend when your baby's born that you have that kind of little naked cuddle which is nice. Very intimate though. It was very intimate. Unexpected in that. I wasn't expecting the twerking. Then we had, if that wasn't on our kind of, as a colleague said, it wasn't on her bingo card for the day. And then we saw pictures of Harry and Lilybeth again when she was a newborn. And then we had this extraordinary video, I think it's fair to say, in which Harry and Meghan are dancing around the delivery suite. I mean, I don't know anybody who's had a baby who was doing that in labour. I don't know if they'd gone in.

Must be the yoga she does. I thought the photos were very in keeping with actually sort of other members of the Royal Family's birthdays with you know lovely photos that are posted and I thought you know you had the lovely photos in the morning, the lovely photos that then dropped in the evening. The video I mean it's certainly divided opinion. Some people think it's lovely. There's quite a lot of opinion out there online and elsewhere and coverage here in the States that doesn't think it's quite so, that thinks it's a bit bemusing. A video that you might do as a couple privately that you might not want to share with your millions of Instagram followers and the rest of the world.

We had a little preview that perhaps this something like this had happened because Harry writes about it in his memoir spare. He said we did the baby mama dance. But then, interestingly, he goes on to say that the labor wasn't quite as straightforward as, you know, this perhaps suggests and says that when the baby was born, he was asking if the baby was choking, that she looked very blue, but then all newborn babies do. So there was quite a lot of drama at that birth. I mean, this very much seems to me just that Instagram, you know, Instagram-ization of their life now, that everything's perfect, it's all very jolly,

you can dance around the delivery suite. But actually, she could be using that platform, they could both be using that platform to talk about bigger issues, you know, to talk about some of the difficulties that you face, or just some, you know, an element of reality that when you have that kind of following and you have those profiles, they could be doing much more important work and saying, you know, it's quite hard giving birth. I certainly wasn't doing that when I was in the delivery suite with either of my two children. You know, it was very much more kind

of a farmyard scene, let's say, and my husband certainly wasn't filming it because that phone would have gone somewhere where he wouldn't have wanted to have that phone put, let's say. I thought that was a kind of interesting... It's divided a lot of opinion, which I think these two are used to by now and don't really care about. I mean, some of the coverage today has been, the word cringe has been bandied about a lot. Privacy as well. Privacy.

Privacy is the other really interesting issue, isn't it? Well, that's it. They wanted to have a private life. They wanted to go away from the cameras. And again, in Harry's memoir, he talks about going to sit for them to give birth. And it was great because they didn't have any interest from anybody. They could just calmly go and eat chips that were brought in. There's not much privacy around a video of twerking in the delivery suite. It's hard to see how those two mantras add up, isn't it? I really liked the photos of Meghan and Lilibet. I really liked the photos of Harry and Lilibet.

I thought they were sweet. And I thought they were perfect. They were a lovely way to kind of celebrate. They don't get put out on the Royal Family social media things here when it's Libet. So it's their way of commemorating that. And I get that. I just felt that the video was attention grabbing. I don't know why it wasn't included in the Netflix either. I wonder if it was part of the...

Maybe it's for the next series. It's kept us all talking so it's probably hit its mark there. Now, it all comes a few days after an absolutely intriguing story last week that Harry apparently had a natter with his uncle Charles Spencer, obviously Diana's brother, uncle to William and Harry, that he had explored, seriously explored and thought about the logistics around changing his name from Mountbatten-Windsor, of course that's their surname, to Spencer. Which would have been a significant move. We know him as Duke of Sussex, we know him as Prince Harry.

Part of the Windsors. Yes, and the surname isn't really used, but it would have been a significant two fingers up to the palace. I was surprised by that story. We've moved on. The reason why it surprised me was because Mountbaton Windsor was a name that was so carefully crafted by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip as a way of reflecting Prince Philip's heritage and his ancestry combining that with you know his marriage to the Queen. It was very personal to him and also to her. Yeah.

So I just thought that was quite sad. I mean you know. Would Harry have been thinking that at the time though do you think or would he have I just sort of, I thought that was quite sad. I mean, you know, would Harry have been thinking that at the time though, do you think? Or would he have been just sort of blinded by... Yeah, daughter Linnabeth is named after the late Queen. You know, the names, and you know, with the middle name of Diana, the names are very, very... That was another contentious issue, wasn't it, as well? That, you know, how much did they tell the Queen that that was going to happen? And how much did they seek her, you know, her approval?

She let it be, didn't she? She let it be briefed out. Through the BBC, yeah. It became known that she was essentially told that that would be the case rather than asked if that might be okay with her. What's in the name? I mean, I also was surprised by that story because then she would have been Lilibet Spencer, Lilibet Diana Spencer with the very obvious kind of... Lilibet Diana Spencer. the very obvious kind of... Yes, linked to Harry's late mother.

You know, Spencer, you know, they're blue bloods, the Spencers, almost more blue blooded than the Royal Family themselves. But you know, the Windsors, I think is the Trump royal name, branding-wise, don't you? Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine she's got... Has she got Mountbatten Windsor written on her, you know, a little nursery bag when she goes to preschool. Princess Lilibet, Mountbatten-Windsor. It's quite a handful, isn't it, for the lunchbox. No denial from the Sussex camp on that story, which I thought was really interesting.

No, if anything, you know, the guidance is that that did happen. I think some details around the conversation with Al Spencer have been pushed, they've pushed back on that and that it was mooted, it was a discussion and they've moved on. But yeah, what's really interesting is, you know, they continue, five years on, you know, they are continuing to make big waves out there across the Atlantic. Meanwhile... Still on the subject of families, happy or not. Still on the subject of families and Harry to some

extent we had Prince William, Wills Week. We haven't really discussed Wills Week recently. Well Wills Week is back with a bang this week. Yeah. Because we had it flying back with a bang literally. So William was at Wattersham. He was at Wattersham where actually Harry learnt to fly. And he was there in as role as Colonel in Chief of the Army Air Corps. Which of course is Harry's old regiment. Where Harry served with the Army Air Corps in Afghanistan when he served with them in 2012 as an Apache helicopter co-pilot and gunner. And the King handed over this regiment to William last year, didn't he? They did that joint engagement, which was quite sort of powerful and there was a lot of discussion there about that had been you know Harry's regiment and

what he was... I thought again... We said at the time didn't we that that would have been a job that would obviously have gone to Harry. Yes it would have done. Had he stayed? There were a lot of images that came out of that visit of William there where you had him in his blueberry, you had him flying so he flew in but he then flew himself out in the Wildcat because he's still keeping his flying hours up and obviously he served as a pilot in various jobs. I thought it was quite interesting because there were a lot of papers print wise that had that on their front page until the Harry and Meghan

video dropped. Would that video have dropped in the afternoon and into the evening if we hadn't had William flying himself in a helicopter in his blueberry? Into Harry's old regiment. Disgust. The timing was intriguing. And while William was there, he made another intriguing comment. And I, you know, there's a bit of tongue in cheek about this. So he was talking to soldiers and their families about life,

you know, serving in the army and talking about coming back. Do you see, he said to one soldier, do you see enough of your family? And then he sort of joked, didn't he, and said, well, you know, they might not always want to see you. It's a mixed bag sometimes. A bit of a mixed bag, I think that's it. And he was there wearing the blu-beray of the Army Air Corps in Harry's old regiment. It didn't come across to me. It was a drive. It was a dig. A genuine Harry's old regiment. It didn't come across to me if I could genuinely dig at Harry. It was a light-hearted, you know, William having fun with the troops, which he does really, really well, talking to them on their own

level, having served with the RAF himself. As you said, he's a helicopter pilot. But Everyone pounces on it, don't they? Everyone goes, oh, William said family's a mixed bag. What does he mean? Well, you know, he's not daft either is he, William? I mean, perhaps this is the way forward. Maybe this is the time to say, well, you know, we're just like everybody else. Yeah. That family is a mixed bag. You know, you might fall out. You might fall in.

Everyone's got an experience on that front. So the other thing that came out of that engagement was he was he was chatting to some of the soldiers on the base about their accommodation and I think there was discussion about the facilities they have, some of the facilities they don't have. And he did say, oh, you know, I'll look into your accommodation. And then he did say, I'll raise it with people, whether or not they'll actually listen to me. It's another thing. What I thought was a sort of good acknowledgement from William that although he is the future head of the armed forces and obviously, you know, colonel in chief of that regiment, you know, how much sway does he actually have in terms of making things like that happen?

Yeah, and also that would be down to government and resources that are allocated to the army and all that. Because we saw that when we were in Estonia, didn't we, when we went to that base? He was saying, let's get you a fridge in here. He personally donated because I think he was pretty confident that perhaps that wouldn't come through the MOD. This all goes back to what we talked about before and appeared in the profile piece I wrote of William as you know what sort of king he'll be. Again, which is this idea that it's not just about you know turning up cutting ribbons and supporting charities but he really really wants to make that kind of tangible difference on the ground that he can go and say, I visited the Army Air Corps and when I came away, I

made some calls and made sure that their accommodation concerns were sorted out. You know, this is what his father got in trouble for. That's what being colon chief, you could argue, should be about. Should be about, yeah. But they're also in a difficult position, aren't they? You know, Charles got into hot water by firing off the famous memos to ministers. The most popular memos, yeah. I think this is different.

I mean, this is about supporting troops. And you've also seen Prince Harry supporting troops as well. This week, he wrote a letter praising former troops who'd gone to Everest in support of Scotty's little soldiers. And he was talking about that and wrote a letter to them. And I think Harry would love to be in the Yeah. I think lying himself in a wildcat. And I'm sure a lot of the pubs missed that. But it was a jolly occasion wasn't it? He was there serving bacon butties to the troops and sausage bats

and things like that and... I tell you what else is gonna be very jolly today. Come on. That's William and Cornwall with Aunt Sophie. Yes. This is an intriguing pairing because last week Kensington Palace announced that William in his role as Duke of Cornwall will be visiting the Cornwall show. He won't be going with his wife, he'll be going with Sophie and that is the Duchess of Edinburgh, their first joint engagement together. And the reason I find this fascinating on so many levels is because I've always felt, I don't know what you think, that there is a slight underplaying of Sophie by Buckingham Palace.

She is such good news on so many fronts. You know, we've done engagements with her, we've travelled with her. She's great, she's interested in such important issues. Quite brave as well. I was there when she was doing something called menstruation. She tackles really difficult subjects. You know, she talks about violence at war against women. She talks about rape.

You know, she's not afraid to kind of tackle... Punchy stuff. Yeah, stuff that's until very recently kind of taboo to talk about. I think there's a bit of an understanding of Sophie. And I know that William feels that when I did a profile of Sophie when she turned 60 and spoke to someone very close to William who acknowledged this and said, Who thinks she's great? Under the reign of King William,

She's going to have a major role. Sophie and Edward are going to be front and centre. Absolutely. And so the announcement of this engagement I found fascinating. What a pairing that's going to be. Why wouldn't, why wouldn't Buckingham Palace make more of the work, the good work, that the Duchess of Edinburgh is doing? Because we all make quite a lot of it.

Well it feels like a bit of a mis-trick to me. If you're going around, if she's going around and doing this sort of work on behalf of the Royal Family, why don't they promote her more? You know, why don't they push her out a bit more? Why don't they, I don't know, invite journalists to come and see some of the work that she's doing a bit more? I mean, the Nepal trip recently that you went on, I think that was, again, a kind of a rare instance,

and Buckingham Palace was saying, who would be interested to go? And they're often kind of bemused by the fact that we are interested in what she's doing. And they were both great. The work they were doing was interesting. And at the time, there are very few senior members of the royal family and there's certainly very few in that kind of bracket where you can see the kind of longevity.

There's a sort of reticence there to promote her and her work more. I certainly feel that William has clocked that and is going to change that. Yeah, absolutely, he will do. We've seen this for a long time as well, haven't we? There was that big delay in making Sophie and Edward Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. Very long time ago. Now, years ago, and the Palace had that on their website, that, you know, under Prince Edward's profile, because he was taking on the Duke of Edinburgh awards from his father, that he would one day be known as the Duke of Edinburgh.

And then that piece was taken off the website. Charles came to the throne and there was this silence that went on for a long time. And I thought, you know, finally they were made Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. It did seem like an unnecessary delay in my mind until they were. And again, you know, make more of them. Why don't they make, you know, from even just from a PR perspective. Do you remember the old Fab Four? What's the hesitation? Remember the old Fab Four? Remember them?

The old Fab Four. William, Kate, Harry and Meghan. Those are the days. The next Fab Four could be William, Kate, Sophie and Edward. Think that pairing and those pictures are going to be rather lovely at the more show, William and Sophie. They really like each other and they get on really well. Sophie's great with Kate as well, you always see that interaction then when they're like on balconies.

That was nice at Remembrance Sunday wasn't it, and the two of them on the balcony and it was a rare sighting of the Princess of Wales who had been off having her cancer treatment and then as they walked back in Sophie just sort of put her hand on her back and gave her a little kind of pat. Yeah that's nice. There's a lot of warmth there. There is and I think we're... And we could do with having discussed Harry and William, I think we could do with a bit of warmth in the family. Raining or shining in Cornwall I think we'll see that warmth between Sophie and William. So last time we had our podcast we were talking in Ottawa. We were. It was a bit of a whirlwind adventure to say the least, because we're on the ground for less than 24 hours

before wheels up and we're back on the King's flight coming home. So we didn't actually last week talk about the King's speech from the throne in the Senate in Ottawa, which I think was really interesting. Obviously, he's speaking on behalf of the government and addresses their concerns, their new policies, but there was more of a flourish there than we would see at the opening

of Parliament here. From the King's own kind of affections, wasn't there? Oh, I found that whole speech completely fascinating. I found the choreography of the state of parliament fascinating. The messaging that came through that speech in terms of, as we all predicted and expected, Canada's sovereignty, the language that he used about, you know, stressing that Canada was, it valued its sovereignty, it valued freedom, those are the things that Canadians value the most and that that almost that payoff line from Charles where he said The true north is indeed strong and free. Yeah, it was absolutely On the words of the anthem

There was no debate about what he meant and who that was aimed at, which was Donald Trump who'd been constantly and still after that speech Reaffirming the notion of Canada possibly becoming the 51st state of America. That was the King of Canada in Canadian Parliament saying, Canada is sovereign, will always be sovereign, back off. And it felt very historic to be sitting in the press gallery listening to the King delivering that because it was pretty punchy I thought. It was. And in terms of him as a kind of, you know, obviously as a global statesman as well, I thought it was interesting that he was delivering this, the new Mark Carney government. And by the way, they were loving him, weren't they? There was shadowing. We love you. He was loving it, wasn't he? He was loving it. He was,

he enjoyed the honeymoon, Mark Carney, because for politicians, for politicians, it doesn't always last very long. He's definitely in it. He is for now. It seems to have united Canada, you know, in the face of this threat from from Donald Trump. Previous provinces would, you know, who might not have seen eye to eye, now coming together under this kind of banner of the Maple Leaf flag. But in terms of what that government was trying to establish with that speech, I thought was interesting. There was a saying that they were going to reactivate and remobilize their army and their armed forces in the face of threats, not just America, but talking

about, you know, although they didn't name them properly, talking about Chinese saber rattling in the Arctic, and various other threats on the global stage, you know, with ongoing concerns around the world. And then a few days later we had similar sentiments from Sakhir Starmer here in the UK to put the UK on a war footing and increasing spending on the military. And I think this is where you see the King at the heart of all these, you know, the link-ups with all these heads of state, that he's really in the mix, that he knows everything that's going on, him and his aides, and it puts a palace at the heart of what's a huge global issue.

I don't think there was a single royal correspondent that didn't use the phrase diplomatic tightrope walk in their coverage in the run-up and afterwards myself included and you. Do you think he walked it well? I think he did walk it well. It was carefully balanced. He has a lot of experience of this. It was carefully balanced. Good advisors helping him with the speech. Very good advisors, very savvy advisors. And I think that speech, obviously, although written by the Canadian government, had been back and forth

with a kind of diplomatic lens put on it from the palace as well to make sure that the king wasn't saying anything out of turn. And I think that was a lot of back and forth about how that would be phrased and I think it did hit the nail on the head. Delivered a very punchy message and delivered the message it needed to and delivered the message the Canadians wanted to hear. Yeah. Which I thought was key. Yeah I think he's probably bought him a bit of time as Canada as a realm. I don't think they're gonna be rushing for any calls for a Republican referendum any time soon. Not as long as Trump's in the White House I don't think they're going to be rushing for any calls for a Republican referendum many times. Not as long as Trump's in the White House, I don't think.

Turning to our final story today, and this is a fun one. Buckingham Palace released records last week listing the official gifts received by members of the royal family between 2020 and 2023. Now previous years we've had them every year. We have. Then there was a big gap and we thought what are they getting? And finally... Turns out they weren't just getting commemorative mugs, which I thought was all I needed to send the king for his coronation.

No. Because what does the King of Bahrain send? He sent a Rolls Royce. A really, really low-key Rolls Royce. Thank you so much King of Bahrain. Worth at least £300,000. King of Bahrain. He does love a fancy gift, doesn't he? I'll send him my Christmas list, I think.

I've already sent him mine. There's so many interesting things on there. We had from Andrew Holness of Jamaica who told Kate and William that the country was moving on from the royal family. What did he give them? Give them something to kind of soften the blow, a bottle of rum. Knock yourself out with this coming of republic. You won't notice, you'll be drunk. Six dog jackets to the late Queen from the Royal Australian Air Force. Now that's clever.

She would have loved that. I reckon she'd love that. I want to see the picture of the corgis and the dog jackets. Please Buckingham Palace if that exists. Yes please, we'd love to see that. There were some blue Peter badges, there was a tea set from Smythson of Bond Street, quite old school. What do you get, what do you buy a monarch? I mean apart from a Rolls Royce, what would you? What do you get the person who has everything? Well I'll tell you what, two double-sided blankets for the Queen's two white ponies. Well you would say grey poniesies, wouldn't you? I mean, I highly, I would completely welcome. No, I would welcome a rug or blanket for a walls. Some apple run for Prince Edward.

Not so much. A hand carved walking stick from an unnamed guest to the Princess Royal. I think that's... Practical, she'd love that. She would absolutely love that. She also got a model of a slurry cat tanker from the Slurry Cat company. Lucky Princess Royal. The late queen got a face mask from NASA.

Like a creamy one that you put on or one you actually made of your face? I'm guessing it's a COVID one. A porcelain horse from the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Should have put that in the downstairs loo probably. Absolutely. I mean there have been some corking,king strange wild and wonderful gifts over the years but can anything top Kate, gifts wise, can anything top the wedding gift that Princess Elizabeth got in 1947 from the Nizam of Hyderabad? I don't think so because she was given an 80 million

pound diamond necklace from Cartier. Not bad is it? No. No. It makes a Rolls Royce look pretty small change. Which begs the question, yeah, begs the question where they, oh the Queen's had loads of horses as well hasn't she over the years? Yes. But it begs the question where, you know, who owns these gifts, where they're stored? Well they're not technically allowed to keep them are they? No.

Unless there, isn't there a sort of value of £150 or below can be kept or given to household staff or if they're perishable. Yeah. So if Megan says a jam, then they don't have to declare that and that can go straight in the fridge. Have you sent any jam to Buckingham Palace? I don't think I'm not sure Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace have received any Megan jam yet.

No, not yet. Yet. No, but those big, I mean, like the Rolls-Royce has gone into the Royal Muse, hasn't it? The Buckingham Palace said the Rolls-Royce is not being used personally by the King. It's gone to the feet of cars that ferry them all around. Held in trust for the nation. Let's see where it ends up. Yeah, does that mean that we can ask her for a ride? Keep an eye on that, Rolla.

Well, that's it for this week. But next time... We'll have something else to discuss on our Wills Week segment. We will, because you and I are off to sunny, hooray, sunny Monaco. Yes. We're going to, what are we doing there? We're going to hang out with Prince William. He'll be delivering a landmark speech at a summit to save the planet's oceans. The Blue Economy and Finance Forum, which I am sure is much more exciting than it sounds.

Let's hope so. It's all about protecting the oceans, isn't it? It's about protecting the ocean. He's released a new film today in which he, part of his Guardian series, he says he's been inspired by Sir David Attenborough. He'll be talking about basically the ocean being on the brink, you know, on all the perils of the land, and he'll be talking to some of his Earthshot nominees, shortlisted. It's interesting positioning again of William, isn't it?

Because he's going to be giving the landmark speech before President Macron, France, before President Chavez, Robles of Costa Rica, and before Prince Albert of Monaco. Yeah. But Kensington Palace are very keen to stress that this is him again, you know, building his role as global statesman on the international stage combining it with something that he's very very keen on which is ocean health and for us, you know protecting the oceans

Which we've seen a lot of him haven't we on the world stage. Yeah in the last six months I think it's really interesting to see them, but also deliberately positioning him in this way as well Hmm. Well, I'll see you there Kate. See you there. Cocktail on the beach hopefully and there'll be time for that. Oh fine time. In the meantime if you'd like to get in touch email us at theroyalsatthetimes.co.uk. Until then goodbye. You