Royal’s astonishingly blunt confession about life in the family: ‘Total hell’

A British actor who married into the royal family and is regularly seen alongside them has claimed life in the Palace is “torture”.

IN LONDON

Lady Frederick Windsor has given a candid interview about being a royal, admitting “the more” she sees of her husband’s family’s life, the more she believes “their lives are total hell” and “torture”.

Sophie Winkleman, star of hit series Peep Show and Two and a Half Men, married 54th in line to the throne, Lord Frederick Windsor, in 2009 in a lavish ceremony at London’s Hampton Court Palace and has been in proximity to the royal family since.

Prince Edward, Princess Anne, Lady Frederick Windsor and Prince Harry at Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston’s wedding at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle in 2019. Picture: Frank Augstein – WPA Pool/Getty Images

MORE: ‘Scandalous’: Royal Family’s $260m payday slammed

While maintaining her acting career, mother-of-two Winkleman is also regularly photographed at the likes of Royal Ascot and Trooping the Colour, and recently, alongside King Charles and Prince William at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral.

“The more I get to know the royal family, the more I get that their lives are total hell and that level of unasked-for fame is a form of torture,” she told the UK’s Times.

Winkleman with the King and Queen at Ascot in 2023. Picture: Henry Nicholls/AFP

MORE: Royal family’s odd new hide-out

“None of them went on [UK reality show] Pop Idol or something to be famous.

‘To have that sort of blinding spotlight in your face from when you’re born, not knowing quite whom you can trust, not knowing if someone’s going to betray you, people writing lies about you the whole time, is just brutal.

“I feel for them all. I don’t think a life with that much scrutiny and pressure is remotely healthy, but they have no choice.”

Lord and Lady Frederick Windsor on their wedding day. Picture: John Stillwell/WPA Pool/Getty Images

Winkleman starred as Big Suze in cult series Peep Show.

Prince Harry himself famously wrote about the “fancy captivity” he felt that “royal fame” had brought him from birth in his memoir Spare, with constant scrutiny from the media and the public.

Speaking to Oprah Winfrey alongside Meghan in their 2021 post-royal interview, the Duke of Sussex also claimed he had been “trapped” but “didn’t know I was trapped”, and that he felt “huge compassion” for his father and brother as “they don’t get to leave”.

Originally published as Royal’s astonishingly blunt confession about life in the family: ‘Total hell’