What a difference a decade has made for Camilla, once reviled as the mistress blamed for breaking up the fairytale marriage of Princess Diana to heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles.
As the Duchess of Cornwall turns 60 on Tuesday, she is an accepted member of the royal family, the press is positive and the public see a matronly figure whose support for Charles has put a smile back on the face of “The Prince of Wails.”
It is all a far cry from the turbulent days when Diana called Camilla “The Rottweiler” and she was reported to have been pelted with bread rolls by enraged shoppers when she ventured into a supermarket, a tale denied by her friends.
“There will always be a hard core of people who were Diana devotees and who like to believe that Camilla was the root of all evil. But I think the majority recognise it was not that simple,” royal biographer Penny Junior told Reuters.
“There is no comparison with Camilla at 50 and now. She is acceptable to the public. There were people who thought she was after something in her pursuit of the prince. But she is happy to support him and has no personal ambition.”