King Charles Won’t Go Anywhere Without His Teddy Bear and Custom Toilet Seat

Royal author Christopher Andersen has been promoting his upcoming book The King: The Life of Charles III and dropping little morsels of the absolute strangest and unsettling facts about the head of the British monarchy. Charles, who waited 70 years to ascend to the throne, not only takes his custom shitter and teddy bear that only his childhood nanny, who is miraculously still alive and working, is allowed to repair (elder abuse?!) but also has his shoelaces ironed daily, brings his own chef to friends’ houses for dinner, is tucked into bed at night, and has someone squeeze an inch of toothpaste onto his toothbrush every morning. These are the behaviors of toddlers, and yet taxpayers supply this man with a $1.1 million salary.

Andersen claims Charles also has a “volcanic temper” and once ripped a sink off a bathroom wall in a rage, because his cufflink fell down the drain. That might be the most surprising tidbit of information, to me, personally. I can just take one look at the man and believe the weird bathroom/teddy bear stuff. And, yea, his energy is definitely giving “Jeeves, it’s essential you iron m’shoelaces.” What I don’t immediately perceive is the strength to demolish a bathroom by hand—though, I suppose we saw some of that unbridled rage when he stormed out of his office in a fury because his, uhm, pen didn’t work.

The only royal with their head screwed on the right way is Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, who told her grandkids to get a fuckin’ job and stripped them of their titles. To be over 70 years old and still cling to these childhood objects of comfort, despite having almost everything in the world available to you, seems pathological. The smallest part of me feels bad for this strange, unhappy man, imprisoned by an imperialist lineage that’s losing its merit by the minute. But then I remember that he’s extremely rich and powerful and holds the keys, in his very swollen hands, to free himself of this torture at any given moment.