It hardly feels hyperbolic to say that the Prince of Wales has it all. He’s got a loving wife, three kids, and oh, yeah he’s heir apparent to the British throne. Still, Prince William has changed a lot over the years — especially on his journey to becoming a family man. And as it turns out, even royals aren’t immune to having an angsty teenage phase. Though, to be fair, William did have some pretty valid reasons to act out. His parents, King Charles III and Princess Diana, had a tumultuous marriage marred by infidelity prior to their contentious, and very public, 1996 divorce. Charles, who was the Prince of Wales at the time, had a well-documented affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, who later became his second wife.
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But in historian Robert Lacey’s 2020 book “Battle of Brothers,” the royal expert sensationally divulged that Diana confessing to being in love with British soldier James Hewitt back in 1995 is what really set William off. “He had broken out in one of the notorious rages that would, from time to time, scar his teenage years and young adult life,” Lacey wrote (via The Mirror), adding, “All hell broke loose. He was furious.”
Of course, Diana tragically died in 1997, when William was just 15 years old. And sadly, according to royal journalist Katie Nicholl’s own 2022 book “The New Royals,” Charles took a decidedly hands-off approach to parenting both William and his younger brother Prince Harry after the fact. “Often when they wanted to speak to their father, he wasn’t around,” one of Charles’ former aides dished (via Business Insider).
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Prince William’s younger years were the subject of multiple documentaries
Interestingly, a number of television documentaries chronicled Prince William’s teenage and young adult years while they were still going on. One such documentary was “Prince William, Royal Teenager: Behind the Headlines,” which was released in 2000 and expressed concern that the future Prince of Wales’ troubled home life, dodgy circle of friends, and supposed genetic predisposition to addiction might lead him down a dangerous path. “He has to be a little bit more careful than most people,” psychiatrist and royal biographer Dennis Friedman opined of William (via YouTube).
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But while the prince was known to enjoy a party or two during his college days, it all seems to have been in good fun. Unearthed footage of William happily dancing with future wife Kate Middleton even went viral on TikTok. But, despite William and Catherine’s partying past coming back to haunt them to a certain extent, the beloved royal couple is firmly focused on family these days. And it seems one decision that might have kept the future ruler humble, while preparing him for a more low-key family life down the line, was when he took a gap year in his studies to volunteer in rural Chile.
The 2005 documentary “Prince William and Prince Harry: Prisoners of Celebrity” details how William cooked, cleaned, and even spent some time as a radio DJ. As royal biographer Ingrid Seward argued, “I think William’s trip to Chile was extremely, extremely good for him. He came out of it a much more grown-up, leveled human being,” (via YouTube).
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