Duchess Camilla ‘didn’t have a career before’ marrying Charles, ‘she wasn’t interested’

As we discussed, there are easily six major royal books/biographies coming out over the next three months. All of them seem to have one purpose: to poison the well ahead of Prince Harry’s memoir. I’m sure there are other purposes too, but it’s almost like the entire royal-commentary establishment has admitted that they know Harry’s book sales are going to blow their book sales out of the water. Sure, they’ll be selective about how they report the sales too, but they’re scared. Scared and delusional. Which brings me to Angela Levin, who has written a new “biography” of the Duchess of Cornwall. Levin is batsh-t crazy and I can’t believe she’s still a fixture within royal-commentary circles. Well, Levin is already shilling for her Camilla book, and she admitted something sort of interesting: Camilla never had a job. She never wanted to work. She just wanted to party and sleep around.

Camilla Parker Bowles had an “astonishing” change of lifestyle after she married Prince Charles.

The 75-year-old Duchess of Cornwall has been married to The Prince of Wales since 2005, after they wed in a ceremony at Windsor Guildhall. And her biographer claims that since then, The Duchess of Cornwall has had an upheaval in her entire lifestyle to revolve around royal duties, that other members of the firm wouldn’t partake.

Angela Levin authored the upcoming biography, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall: From Outcast to Future Queen Consort, where she exclusively reflected to The Daily Star how much Camilla has changed over the years for her lifestyle she was previously used to.

She explained: “I think she has at the age of 57, when she married Prince Charles, it’s absolutely astonishing that she could change her life so completely. She didn’t have a career before. She wasn’t interested. She just liked to read, go to parties, and have fun. And she wasn’t brought up to think in any other way. But she has changed enormously for the better. And the more she’s done in the world of charities, the more she wants to do.”

[From The Daily Star]

It’s true – Camilla never had a career, really. In her early 20s, she worked as a secretary but she got fired for being lazy and showing up to work late. She married Andrew Parker Bowles at the age of 26 and immediately retired to the country to be a housewife. After Andrew divorced her, she didn’t work and Charles financially supported her and bought her Ray Mill. Charles’s advisors always complained about Camilla’s laziness too. I mean… Levin is sort of right when she says “she wasn’t brought up to think in any other way.” Camilla wasn’t titled, but she was a well-connected aristocrat who wasn’t brought up to work. Wealthy women of her generation were expected to have a limited education and then get married to someone suitable and “well-bred.” Honestly, this is what the Duchess of Sussex faced when she entered that world too – they could not believe that they were faced with a Black woman who was well-educated, self-made and successful on her own terms. Meghan was literally and figuratively foreign to them.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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67 Responses to “Duchess Camilla ‘didn’t have a career before’ marrying Charles, ‘she wasn’t interested’”

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  1. girl_ninja says:

    They are all a bunch of lazy bums and Meghan made them see themselves and they didn’t like it. The photos chosen for the piece are spectacular. She’s not only horrible she is so…whew.

    • Jessamine says:

      Unfortunately I think they see and like themselves quite well … I think they were afraid of “the masses” making unfavorable comparisons and expecting them to change

      • Fawsia says:

        It is the 21st century and I hope they will not be expecting the world to take them seriously if they want to live like the 16 century!

    • DouchesOfCambridge says:

      @girlninja totally. Meghan probably made them feel like the losers that they are and embarrassed that they have nothing to show for their privilege. KKKamilla and KKKate are just the same. No job, no careers, no work, let’s go to the country and lazy all the way. Bunch of bums.

    • SarahFrancisco says:

      Okay, one can call her lazy, or stupid, or entitles, but… if a person has means/ways to support herself and no desire to work, then I don’t see a problem. I’d rather people who don’t want to work and have money, stay home and not bother anyone. Not show up with sour faces at the office and ruin everyone’s morning. Not pretend they produce something while they are just browsing the Web. Not hold a chair for years that could’ve been someone else’s who actually does work.
      Just stay home and read if you can. I would.

      • Rose says:

        Yeah, I agree

      • DouchesOfCambridge says:

        If you dont want to work, you want to stay home, get married and have that special somebody provide for you, that’s completely fine. Why not, educated or not? But if your ambition is to become a royal – a queen – a person who should be an example to follow, a person to inspire the world, one who will possibly work to change it, your laziness will not cut it. Many notorious personalities who made a huge difference in the world didnt have much education, but they had the will and they put in the hard work for the causes they believed in. The lazy bums, are just getting up and going were they are told for an image, a perception that they are doing something when they actually don’t care. Lazy bully racist homewrecker cheating wife future queen consort of GB. Doesnt read well on a cv

  2. equality says:

    If that was the lifestyle she wanted then more power to her. It makes her charity work now look performative since she didn’t have enough passion before marrying PC to be concerned about other people. Maybe she and K have more in common than meets the eye.

    • Amy Bee says:

      Her charity work is all aimed at getting the public and especially women on her side not about helping people.

  3. ThatsNotOkay says:

    “Camilla wasn’t titled,” but she sure was ENtitled. Must be nice to be so privileged that you can be completely useless to society and yet reap all the rewards over the productive members.

  4. Midnight@theOasis says:

    “Camilla wasn’t titled, but she was a well-connected aristocrat who wasn’t brought up to work. Wealthy women of her generation were expected to have a limited education and then get married to someone suitable and “well-bred.”

    This sounds so Victorian. I’m sure this is still common amongst the wealthy but it is such a foreign concept to me. Raised to be brood mares and kept women and to be content with that lifestyle. How suffocating.

    • aftershocks says:

      “Camilla wasn’t titled, but she was a well-connected aristocrat who wasn’t brought up to work.”

      Camilla, born Camilla Rosemary Shand, grew up the daughter of a British army officer, Major Bruce Shand (who later became a wine merchant). Camilla’s mother, Rosalind, is the daughter of Roland Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe. So, Camilla’s maternal grandfather, Roland, is the aristocrat relative. Neither of Camilla’s parents were titled aristocrats. Camilla grew up as ‘gentry,’ the British class designation defined as, “untitled people of good social status, specifically in the U.K., people who are next below nobility in position and birth.”

      Camilla’s grandfather, Roland Cubitt, married Sonia Rosemary Keppel (Camilla’s maternal grandmother) who is descended from the titled aristocrat Keppel family. The Keppels trace their line back to King Charles II. The famous mistress of Edward VII, Alice Keppel, married Sonia Keppel’s father, George (so Alice Keppel was Sonia’s stepmother). Thus, Alice was a woman who married into the noble Keppel family and then carried on a condoned affair with a King of Great Britain!

      Upshot: Alice Keppel is Camilla’s step-great-grandmother, and is not related to Camilla by blood. Yet, Camilla seemingly grew up more enchanted by Alice’s role as mistress to a king, when Alice apparently met King Edward VII as a result of marrying into the noble Keppel family. You’d think Camilla would be more proud of the Keppel family’s aristocratic status and royal heritage, rather than fascinated by the woman who married into the family and became historically famous for cheating on her husband with a king (unless her husband died before the affair began). Just sayin’ 😜

  5. lunchcoma says:

    I noted that before. She didn’t work before she got married, and she didn’t work after her kids had reached adulthood. And that is, apparently, what Charles likes in a woman.

    I guess it’s not a horrible thing in and of itself, but it makes it pretty hard for her to be relatable to any sort of modern woman, or to women her own age who never had the option to assume a man would always support her.

    • Green girl says:

      The BRF really do live on another planet don’t they? I can’t relate to the mentality of just…not working. I got bills to pay and also I think it would be boring after a while.

      • The Recluse says:

        It takes a special kind of uninterested, self-indulgent, unmotivated personality to live willingly the way she has.

  6. Miranda says:

    Is Levin’s intention to make us all go, “Wow, she finally had to become a functioning adult at near 60 and play at caring about whatever charity her people decided would make her appear most sympathetic! Good job, old girl!”

    Pardon me if I’m a bit underwhelmed.

    • smarmyo says:

      I used to go to a better health club in NYC, and the wealthy women there would come in at 8AM and work out for 2.5 hours, then they’d dress nicely and go to lunch (4 hour morning). They were going to engagements, getting nips and tucks, vacationing overseas, and supervising the people who took care of their houses/apartments and children. Most of them had multiple homes. They were busy, they looked great, and they only concerned themselves with people in their income class. Their lives were about looking good at social events, and as @OriginalLaLa said, gossip and charity work. I felt like such a sweaty schlub racing in to do a 30 minute workout and going back to my desk job, compared to these ladies. Class, wealth, and different categories of experience.

      • SuzieQ says:

        @smarmyo, you weren’t a schlub — you were the one with class and experience.
        I can’t imagine living an existence as empty as that of Camilla’s early life.

      • Moneypenny424 says:

        @smarmyo I agree, these are the women who Camilla is like, not normal people. That is the life of most wealthy people, even now. I know many people who fit that bill, and at least some of them throw themselves into charity work…but many don’t.

  7. vs says:

    How do people like these spend their days and not get bored? I do know a few socialites who just seem to wander from parties to parties, from this vacation house to that other vacation house. Some do end up doing some type of charity work to keep busy!
    I sometimes wonder how a human being with a well functioning brain does not get bored out of the mind being so useless and with so little purpose! I will never get it to be honest….

    • OriginalLaLa says:

      They’re not raised to be curious about the world, or raised to have any empathy – they fill their days with socializing, idle gossip, and “charity” work. It’s a lame, dull life for lame, dull people

    • Anna says:

      This is mind boggling for me. I would die of boredom.

      Just think how well educated you could be, in any area you wish because you wouldn’t have to think if that could give you a sensible career since money is no issue. You could become fluent in foreign languages… and yet they just want to sit, drink and make snobby jokes about others. How are they differen from my neighbors who sit on their couch and drink beer all day? The only difference is the couch and drink price.

    • OriginalMich says:

      The people I’ve known of Camilla’s ilk were quite happy with the dinner parties and luncheons, decorating, complaining about their maids, and sneering about everyone who wasn’t exalted enough to run in their circles. Their social life was their ‘job’. Even the charity work was about the social aspect of being involved in the right event/cause. They were excruciatingly snide and boring people but fantastically proud of themselves.

    • molly says:

      Especially during UK winters. That’s like, barely seven hours of sunlight!

      I’m pretty sure I could fill a lot of days if I lived in Hawaii or San Diego or anywhere that I could be outside a lot, but somewhere that’s mostly clouds and rain would cause me to lose my marbles.

  8. Eurydice says:

    Well, that’s always been the advantage of being a royal mistress – you get the financial benefits without doing additional work. But I’m not sure why Camilla would have been surprised that a Duchess title would include some expectation of work.

  9. Murphy says:

    I can’t fault her for it–the article says that is the life she was bred for, it was engrained in her.

    Kate, on the other hand, went to university-what was the point of that if she was going to end up behaving in the same manner?

    • Eurydice says:

      The point was to meet William.

    • Anna says:

      Or other rich husband if it didn’t work out with Normal Bill

    • E.A says:

      Unfortunately Kate is not the only woman from certain background that attend university just for the degree , they don’t use it find a rich man thats all.

    • C says:

      She was accepted and by certain accounts excited to go to Edinburgh until the news dropped in their circle (and mind you, she met him in 1999 at Marlborough not at St Andrews) where William was going, so that’s why she went.

    • Qita says:

      Standards and expectations have changed as Kate’s a generation from camila. Most women have degrees now I assume all of Kate’s circle does including the new money people she (I presume) grew up with and the people will grew up with. It’s not a huge accomplishment to finish a university degree in a random field. The only hard bachelor degrees are when it’s a competitive field and you’re trying to have a top mark and grading is on a scale. Or trying to have a top gpa to get into a masters program.

  10. MaryContrary says:

    My mother, who is around Camilla’s age, (and American and middle class) was raised in an era that women she knew were either teachers, nurses or secretaries. And that was before you got married-after you were a housewife with kids. I’m not going to criticize Camilla for that-she was following what her generation and class did.

    • BayTampaBay says:

      @MaryContrary – I agree with you 100%. Camilla did EXACTLY what she was raised to do and in marrying Andrew Parker-Bowles she did it well.

    • Dominique says:

      Agreed, that’s also what both my grandmothers did and they weren’t even middle class. You got married as soon as possible and had babies as soon as possible. Since she married rich, she probably did not even look after them but then again a lot of women had help, it was a lot cheaper to hire help than now.
      These women did not have a great deal of options to choose from, this was the norm.

      • Fabiola says:

        My grandmother got married at 17. She’s never had a job, she was a housewife. It was very common back in the day. I don’t know why it’s breaking news that Camilla never had a career or wanted one. If you’re rich it sounds like a great life. I would travel all over the world. I don’t know people think being a desk jockey and working ones self to death is such a great thing. People work all their life and if lucky get to retire at Camilla’s age and finally get to travel.

      • BeanieBean says:

        Wealthy women like Camilla always had options.

      • Flowerlake says:

        ⁸My grandmothers are from an earlier generation than her and both got part time jobs after their children had grown a bit.
        They had worked fulltime before marriage too.

        I don’t think the UK is (much?) behind my country when it comes to women’s empowerement. Both wanted to develop themselves and participate, as well as earn something for themselves.

        My point is that it wasn’t unheard of for women to work, even in earlier times.

        Obe grandmother was middle class marrying middle class, the other working class marrying middle class.

    • Andrea says:

      My mother is 74 and married up in America. She grew up poor and it took her 4 years to work to pay for her 2 year associate degree in the early 1970s. Once she got engaged to my dad who was old school Italian, he promised her she never had to work again and so she stopped at 25 (she worked in a bank at the time, had a degree in computers was offered a job at IBM on LI, but turned it down to marry my dad who was in real estate with his dad). She only worked in her 40s as a teacher’s aide enough to collect social security when she hit 67 (she stopped working again at 55 once she got her quarters for social security). She only had me and seemed to loathe being a stay at home mom, but she also does love her soap operas. She has no real hobbies anymore, but she used to sew alot, make her own curtains etc. She used to maintain the lawn and landscaping and has painted the rooms in the house a bunch. She never really showed any signs of wanting a job my entire life to be honest. She signed up for not having one is what she implied to me. I always have been bewildered by her choices because she could have been an independent woman, but took the easy way out in my view.

    • Prairiegirl says:

      100% correct. And it’s not like this is ‘news’ about Camilla: she dabbled as a secretary like Diana dabbled as a kindergarten teacher. The UK class system still exists in 2022, aristo wives still ‘dabble’ irrespective of their educational attainment, and it always surprises me how surprised people are that Kate didn’t work, doesn’t want to work, etc. It’s literally not their lived experience to want to / have to work for wages.

    • BeanieBean says:

      Yeah, those were the professions my mother was always suggesting for me, although she did include lawyer ‘because I liked to argue so much’. 😉 And yet, when I told her about my dreams for adventure & travel & etc. (I always wanted to be an archaeologist, and that’s what I did), she was fully supportive. Camilla was born into a different class system than most of us, at a different time from most of us, but my goodness, she deserves no accolades or fawning biographies or anything else from us. She got forced into pretending she cares about a few things. Just a few. And let’s not go crazy and call it a ‘career’, Levin. Geez Louise.
      Oh, and I should point out, my mother always worked outside the home, always. In the weeks running up to Christmas, she’d work as a checker at a store, or in pears (local big source of jobs), or something for the extra income. Later, in prepping for divorce from my dad, she got a full time job at Kmart. I guess I’m writing this to illustrate just how damn different women of Camilla’s class can be, cause heaven knows she wasn’t doing the laundry, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc.

    • The Recluse says:

      My Mom was born in 1940. She didn’t finally retire until spring of 2018. 78 years old. She’s 82 now. She had to work her whole life because she couldn’t afford not to. She was a single parent for most of those years. Her mother worked even after she married her second husband – a business from home by the way. It depends on how freaking poor you were as to whether you had the luxury of being a stay at home wife.

  11. Izzy says:

    No wonder she gets along so well with Kate. They have (lack of) ambition in common.

  12. Amy Bee says:

    Nowadays, aristo women study art history or fashion but the objective remains the same to get marry to a fellow aristo and have a bunch of children.

  13. W says:

    Now we know why there are efforts to erase and rewrite Meghan’s pre-royal life. Unlike Meghan, Camilla and Kate became famous because of their connections to the royal family. The RF made them which is why none of them could even dare step out of line. The media would turn on them and remind them of the role they & the firm played in propping them up. That’s why they’re so mad they can’t rewrite Meghan’s history. They believe they built Meghan therefore, she should act like a grateful slave and accept their abuse. It’s easier to create and destroy a fictional propped up image of someone who never had a documented history.

    • WHAT says:

      Talk about only a face 😂 a mother could love. Regardless of Diana’s word to describe Camilla one thing that she has in common with California is Charles adores and cares for her. Not to excuse any other behavior it was nice to see Camilla on stage with Charles supporting him even though most women would be taking the podium to make their own speech. She doesn’t get the coverage but at least she’s active for her charities something that Kate doesn’t do plus she had to sit in her seat while will did his own speech. Aren’t we still awaiting confirmation that she’s going to New York

  14. Athena says:

    Is this true of all aristo women? Some have major estates they help run or oversee, coming up with money making schemes, and that requires work.

    I guess Camilla fell in a middle group, not poor enough to have to work and not saddled with an ancestral estate that requires one to work to keep it afloat.

    • Cairidh says:

      It used to be true of aristocratic women. It changed with Williams generation. Most of them wanted and found careers, jobs, dreams to follow. Kates a throwback…… and she didn’t come from a class where this was ever normal. Her mothers working class, her father middle middle class. Both classes would be expected to work.

      When they were dating someone in Williams circle said “Kate’s got a lot of friends. After all, being Williams girl puts her in a powerful position socially. But privately, her lifestyle is viewed with contempt.” They also compared her unfavourably with Holly Branson who was still training to be a doctor at that point.

      It used to be true of a lot of aristocratic men as well. I remember reading a description of Lord Lucans daily life before he went on the run, and was amazed by how empty and pointless it was.

  15. candy says:

    And this is what’s wrong with our world on so many levels.

  16. Maeve says:

    She was an army daughter and brought up the be an army wife, and this is the lifestyle that army wives/daughters of her generation had. They did some meaningless work that wasn’t taken terribly seriously, married a promising young officer, and moved to the country where they joined the rural round of good works – WI, volunteering, doing the church flowers and being a stalwart of the organising committees. It would have been almost unthinkable to have a career – being a military wife WAS viewed as a career. She’d have been expected to be involved in the regiment, support the junior officers wives while their husbands were deployed, and be a non-complaining rock of sensible British stiff upper lip.

  17. Flying fish says:

    Camilla has that much in common with Kate!

  18. Red Weather Tiger says:

    Isn’t she fun? She just liked to read, hang out, go to parties. Hey guess what? ME TOO. But I had to WORK. She makes me sick, and it is clear that lazy Katey Keen is cut from the same be-buttoned cloth as lazy, pointless Cam.

    Oh but wait, NOW Cam is very very un-lazy! She changed her ways in her late 50s when forced to by marriage to the dude she had been shagging for decades. Now, poor dear, works her fingers to the bone going to parties and events dressed in expensive clothes. What a story of atonement!

  19. Jumpingthesnark says:

    It’s a good point. These aristo types think that any kind of paid work is for peasants. It’s also why Kate doesn’t really dress like a woman in a high powered career field the way we might expect she would— she isn’t going to dress like a peasant. To these people, working people including professionals, are peasants.

    • Dilettante says:

      This.

    • aftershocks says:

      ^^ Camilla is gentry, and at best aristo-adjacent due to her maternal grandfather’s inherited noble (Baron) title. It’s incorrect to refer to Camilla as a born aristocrat. Diana was, Camilla is not.

  20. Julia K says:

    Just a quick reply to Kaisers’ comment about Ray Mill House. Charles did not buy it for her. She purchased it herself with he divorce settlement money from Andrew Parker Bowles.

    • Flower says:

      Wasn’t APB an army guy ?

      Where did he get all the philandering and divorce money from?

      EDIT: Okay just checked and he’s the grandson of an Earl on his mothers side and relatives who were close to Liz herself.

      Most interestingly he was a page boy at Liz and F’lips wedding, which suggests he likely grew up with and was friends with Chuck.

      Messy AF.

      • aftershocks says:

        ^^ Yep, English aristocrats, their history, lineage, superior attitudes, and mores (lack of morals) are indeed mucho messy. Lots and lots of books have been written about their overly indulgent lives and numerous social scandals. The same goes for royalty too, of course, especially since these snobby, established social class groups are so inextricably connected.

  21. Esmerelda says:

    I think she also had some family money, a trust fund or something.
    And I don’t see a life of reading, gardening, horsemanship, and parties as a sad life – I would do it too, if I had the money.
    If I won the lottery, I would leave my 9 to 5 in a heartbeat

  22. Flower says:

    Reminds me of the scene from Downton Abbey where (middle class) cousin Matthew is having dinner with his aristocratic new family and mentions that he is only available at the weekend and they look at him in confusion, bewilderment and disgust as they clearly don’t need to make a distinction between the work week and weekend.

    It seems that Charles is pushing for a final re-brand just before he takes the throne and this particular tidbit it to get the Aristos comfortable with the idea of kissing Camilla’s ring so she doesn’t suffer the same indignities as Kate.

  23. jferber says:

    I’m interested in what Camilla has done with all that extra time over the years, not working and all. Endless lunches with endless booze? Affairs (besides the one with Charles)? Gaslighting?

    • Cairidh says:

      She did do the cooking, for her children, and for Charles, who’d turn up whilst she was hosting a dinner party, and go in the kitchen and eat “nursery food” she’d left him such as cottage pie, whilst he waited for her guests/husband to disappear.

      Looking after two men would take a lot of time/effort. She could be on call for Charles to soothe him when he needed comforting.

  24. paulie says:

    A stay at home mum like many of her generation?

  25. Elsa says:

    I’m 60 and have two jobs. One is a side gig on weekends. I had to get a masters degree to do both. But I’m telling you right now. I wish I had a lovely house and could sit home all day with my dog and read. Maybe go to lunch. I’m tired people. It sounds heavenly.

  26. Abby says:

    Err … isn’t that the definition of royalty though? None of them actually work. Dressing up and showing for events, giving speeches and posing for pictures isn’t work. It’s a joke. And I include the Queen in that. None of them work. They pose and perform, they don’t work, never have, never will. But that is aristocracy in a nutshell, so it’s not like I’m surprised.
    I still don’t get why British people support and like this, but ok. Will always have more respect for the French and the way they handled their useless royals.