Mike Tindall and his two podbros have written a book, which is called the same thing as their podcast: The Good, the Bad and the Rugby. We’ve reached the point in podcast culture where podbros are getting book deals to write about their lives beyond their pods. Crazy world. Anyway, the book is out this week, same as the paperback edition of Prince Harry’s Spare. Much like the other royal-adjacents (Tom Parker Bowles and James Middleton), it seems Mike Tindall has a lot of tea to spill about the Windsors. But all of this tea has been sanctioned by the palace, we can only assume. All I know is that after all of the tantrums over Prince Harry’s Spare, the palace and the media have suddenly clammed up about all of these new books, books which openly discuss the Windsors (in flattering terms). Speaking of, Tindall apparently writes about how William and Kate are super-normal and that they work so hard!
Mike Tindall has revealed the British people would be ‘blown away’ if they could see what the Prince and Princess of Wales are like behind closed doors. He harked back to September 2023 when the Prince and Princess of Wales, both 42, appeared with Princess Anne (Mike’s mother-in-law) on his podcast of the same name with co-hosts, James Haskell and Alex Payne.
Speaking about Kate and William, who are also parents-of-three, Mike said: ‘I think the podcast humanised them a little bit, and I kind of wish they’d let us put the uncut version out, because it would have blown the public away. They came across as down-to-earth, fully engaged, funny and knowledgeable… it was a far more enlightening chat than I expected, not because I thought they’d be dull (I already knew that they weren’t), but because I know how everything to do with the royal family is so carefully controlled.’
As he reflected on the podcast and his relationship with senior members of the royal family, Mike also discussed how the public perception of being a senior working royal is largely inaccurate and explained it’s about much more than ‘shaking a few hands’ and ‘cutting the odd ribbon’. Instead, he continued, life as a senior member of The Firm is ‘all-consuming’ in an extract from his new book.
Tindall, who shares close relationships with several of his in-laws, added it was ‘frustrating’ to allow these myths to perpetuate but that he had learnt to ‘live with it’ over the years.
‘In fact, that’s one of the royal family’s mottos: ‘Never explain, never complain.’ I try not to think about it, although it took me a long time to get to that point. And I also try to be myself. Maybe that’s why I reverse pothole so much, because I want people to know that I’m actually a decent bloke, which goes back to wanting to be liked.’
“Life as a senior member of The Firm is ‘all-consuming’” – I think it is for someone like Princess Anne, who is used to a heavy schedule. But Tindall saying that with a straight face about William and Kate? LOL. They are not consumed by anything but laziness and ugly beards. Tindall also revealed what QEII was like behind the scenes:
Mike Tindall has said the late Queen’s private life ‘wasn’t like Downton Abbey’ in a rare insight into life in the royal family. In his new book, The Good, the Bad & the Rugby – Unleashed, the father-of-three, 46, who is married to Princess Anne’s daughter Zara, describes spending time with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
The former rugby ace explained, ‘I’m sometimes asked if the Queen did informality like “normal” people, and the answer to that is yes. Her life wasn’t like an episode of Downton Abbey, with meals on long tables and everyone dressed in their finery every night. Zara and I would often watch the racing with her on TV, as I’m sure lots of people reading this have done with their gran.’
‘Lunches were also relaxed, especially up in Scotland, where lunch would often be heading out into the open space of the Scottish Highlands for a picnic. There’s a great picture of my daughter Mia sitting with the Duke of Edinburgh that captures exactly what those afternoons were like: members of a very close family who loved each other dearly spending precious time together.’
I don’t doubt that Mike’s experiences with QEII and Prince Philip were very informal and that he mostly interacted with them during family vacations and whatever downtime they had. Does he not realize that other members of the family had completely different working relationships with each other? That his relationships get to be different because he married an untitled, non-working member of the family?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.