Princess Michael of Kent has given a new interview to Tatler magazine, and there is a story about it with some excerpts in the Daily Mail.  She is surprisingly candid for a royal.  Being a royal, I would expect her not to talk about other royals, especially William, Kate and Harry.  There is nothing too revealing, but she did mention them and talk about their houses at Kensington Palace. 

I’ll get to that later, what I want to mention first is the awful nickname they’ve given her:  Princess Pushy.   Really?  But then again, wasn’t it the Daily Mail that gave Kate the nickname “Waity Katie”?  I think it was.  From the few excerpts here and what little I know about Princess Michael, I don’t understand the “Pushy” nickname.  She is clearly an upper-level aristocrat, and wants everyone to know it, but she also seems kind of down-to-earth given some of the things she said.  She’s in that strange place where she’s an HRH living at KP—with lineage that goes back to [according to her] Catherine de Medici and freaking Charlemagne—but doesn’t get paid for by the state and has to hustle to pay rent.  She also has personality—like, way more personality than Kate, or even William and possibly Harry.  Like, I would totally rather hang out with Princess Michael than Harry.  Harry would be fun only to get drunk with (and I don’t like getting drunk), but Princess Michael would talk about fashion (or “glamour” as she says) and her (pretty incredible) background and her writing and gossip and she’d probably cut a b-tch with her words if she wanted… or am I projecting?  I really don’t know much about her, but she does seem like someone who would be fun to hang out with.  She seems like one of those old, haughty b-tches whose money is running out and isn’t afraid to hustle but still wants to keep that air of haughtiness.  One of those b-tches whose b-tchiness I could totally forgive because it would be a hoot to chat with her for an hour.

Anyway, here’s another reason I like Princess Michael:  she works!  She has to.  Prince and Princess Michael of Kent have to pay £120,000 a year in rent.  She has become a speaker on the lecture circuit and dabbles in interior design, and she’s also written a book—which is why she’s given this interview.  Her novel is called The Queen Of Four Kingdoms and is set in the court of 15th century France.  The Mail says it is her first novel, which is technically true, but she also has three other books, which are all non-fiction.  I know a lot of celebrities use ghost writer’s to write their books for them, I really hope Princess Michael didn’t and wrote it herself, I’d have so much respect for her if she did.

Let’s talk about her comments that make her seem kind of down-to-earth.  She said: 

Look, I was taught, and I taught my children, if they ever came back from school saying ‘Oh, so and so’s father’s got a helicopter, it’s not fair’, I’d say, ‘Fair? Whoever said life had to be fair? Is it fair that you live in Kensington Palace? That you’ve each got a pony? There are an awful lot of kids without a pony, you know. Life is not meant to be fair.’  You’re dealt the cards and you make the best of them. I’ve never worried about that. I’m a survivor.

This is the most down-to-earth a royal has ever sounded, right?  While she may have it tougher, and insinuates as such, than other royals (because she’s not paid for by the state, because she has to work and pay her own rent, because she’s a married-in British royal and we all know blood royals are super mean to married-ins, because of whatever), she realizes that she lives a really privileged life compared to most other people.  I mean, William, Kate and Harry are not this self-aware.  They think they have such a hard time because of the royal duties and the media attention and paps and everything else, they want the extremely privileged life their friends lead without all the responsibility and fame, but they don’t realize that they really do lead super privileged lives and their troubles are the definition of first-world problems.  Princess Michael has the mindset of “suck it up and deal with what you’re dealt because it could be a lot worse”, which Will, Kate and Harry just don’t get.