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- Prince William said his parents’ marriage shaped how he shows up as a husband and father.
- “But you take that and you learn from it and you try and make sure you don’t do the same mistakes as your parents,” he said.
- The Prince of Wales said eating together — without phones — helps his family bond.
Prince William says his parents’ failed relationship taught him what kind of partner and parent he wants to be.
During an appearance on Canadian actor Eugene Levy’s Apple TV+ series “The Reluctant Traveler,” the Prince of Wales said he wanted to give his children as normal a home life as possible. The episode aired on Friday.
“I think it’s really important that that atmosphere is created at home. You have to have that warmth, that feeling of safety, security, love,” William told Levy. “That all has to be there, and that was certainly part of my childhood.”
However, since his parents got divorced when he was 14, that sense of stability “lasted a short period of time,” William said.
“But you take that and you learn from it and you try and make sure you don’t do the same mistakes as your parents,” he said. “I think we all try and do that. I just want to do what’s best for my children, but I know that the drama and the stress when you’re small really affects you when you’re older.”
William also shared that one of the ways his family bonds is by sitting down at the dinner table together.
“So, we sit and chat, it’s really important. None of our children have any phones, which we’re very strict about,” William said.
Williams’s parents, Princess Diana and then-Prince Charles, wed on July 29, 1981. Their marriage was troubled from the beginning, overshadowed by Charles’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. Diana and Charles separated in 1992 and finalized their divorce in 1996. The following year, Diana died in a car crash.
Reflecting on the “insatiable” media scrutiny that followed his parents’ marriage, and his mother in particular, William said that it made him more protective of his own family.
“They wanted every bit of detail they could absorb, and they were in everything, literally everywhere. They would know things, they’d be everywhere. If you let that creep in, the damage it can do to your family life is something that I vowed would never happen to my family,” William said.
A representative for William did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.
William isn’t the only public figure to reflect on how their parents’ relationship shaped their own approach to family and marriage.
During a March appearance on the “Sibling Revelry” podcast, Macaulay Culkin said his strained relationship with his father taught him what not to do as a parent.
“It’s one of my earliest memories of him was, ‘When I grew up, this is how I’m not gonna be with my kids,'” Culkin told podcast hosts Kate and Oliver Hudson.
In July, Tracee Ellis Ross said her mother, Diana Ross, inspired her to find joy and meaning in being alone.
“[My mom] didn’t build the wealth she has, she didn’t build the career she made because of a man. The example that was set for me [was] that I didn’t need a man to build the life I wanted. It wasn’t, ‘Look at me,’ it was, ‘This is me.’ And that informed something very important for me foundationally,” Ross told Self Magazine.
