Paparazzi have dogged royal families for decades. Tom Parker Bowles, Queen Camilla’s son, personal experience with them had him “sympathize” with his stepbrothers, Prince William and Harry.
During an interview with The Telegraph, the food critic, said he had his brush with the paparazzi after he was accused of taking drugs at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999.
Soon, it set off a media storm, the 24-year-old at the time recalled, which made him realize how much his stepbrothers suffered from the press.
“It was the very height of the tabloid era. I remember being chased at 100mph by paps trying to get a shot. My mother being screamed at to try to get a reaction. Pushing, jostling. It was horrific, and you are protective of your mother,” he remembered.
Tom recounted the counting of photographers outside his house became “as normal as bacon and eggs in the morning,” noting, “You didn’t think of it in any other way… it was barbaric.”
“I learned a long time ago not to put my fat fingers into the world of William and Harry. But it was appalling what they went through. I’ve had a billionth of what they’ve had to go through but hell, I sympathize,” he concluded.
