He has said that he starts his weeks listening to “head-banging” heavy metal music, so the sight of the Prince of Wales “shaking it off” at a Taylor Swift concert may have surprised some.
But Prince William is a not-so-secret “Swiftie” at heart. William celebrated his 42nd birthday with his two eldest children on Friday night at the Eras Tour’s first night at Wembley stadium.
The outing is understood to have been arranged as a special treat for Prince George, ten, and Princess Charlotte, nine, who are said to be big fans of Swift. They enjoyed the concert with their father from a private box.
The Princess of Wales is still undergoing preventative chemotherapy treatment and stayed at home in Windsor with Prince Louis, six.
If William’s performance was anything to go by, he is just as big a fan as his children. Video footage taken by a concert-goer has emerged of William showing off his moves to Swift’s hit Shake It Off, demonstrating some classic “dad dancing” to which most fathers will relate.
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William was also beaming in pictures posted by Kensington Palace and Swift, 34, on Saturday, showing the singer taking backstage selfies with William, George, Charlotte and Swift’s boyfriend, the American football player Travis Kelce. The photograph posted on Swift’s social media platforms was accompanied with the message “Happy Bday M8! London shows are off to a splendid start,” together with the Union flag, US flag and handshake emojis.
It is not William’s first encounter with the pop star. In 2021 William, who is not renowned for his singing voice, described “cringeing” at the memory of joining Swift and Jon Bon Jovi at a 2013 fundraising gala for the homelessness charity Centrepoint and performing Livin’ on a Prayer, despite not knowing the words.
“I’m sat next to Taylor Swift … and she turns to me, she puts her hand on my arm, looks me in the eye and says, ‘Come on, William, let’s go and sing’. To this day I still do not know what came over me. But, frankly, if Taylor Swift looks you in the eye, touches your arm and says, ‘Come with me’ … I got up, like a puppy, and went, ‘Yeah, OK. That seems like a great idea, I’ll follow you’,” he told the Apple Fitness+ Time to Walk podcast.
“I walked up on stage in a trance and then halfway through Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer song I wake up and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Am I standing on a stage singing Livin’ on a Prayer, when I don’t even know the words?’ The Centrepoint young guys and girls are all there loving it and cheering away, so I thought, ‘If they’re enjoying it, then the night is for them, so sod it — I can’t be the doofus who is going to ruin it for everyone.’ And so I desperately try and remember some of the words and sing as hard as I can. Beneath my black tie there was a lot of sweating going on.”
On the same podcast, which encourages people to walk for their mental and physical health, William also spoke of his love of Tina Turner, and how her music brought back happy memories of his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in 1997 when he was 15.
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“One of the songs I massively remember and has stuck with me all this time, and I to this day still quite enjoy secretly, is Tina Turner’s The Best, because sitting in the back seat, singing away, it felt like a real family moment.
“My mother, she’d be driving along singing at the top of her voice. We’d even get the policeman in the car: he’d occasionally be singing along as well. We’d be singing and listening to the music right the way up to the gates at school where they dropped you off.”
William has also spoken of how music plays an important part in the Wales family’s home life, with the children having “inherited my family’s love of music”, leading to both discord and dancing.
“Most mornings there’s a massive fight between Charlotte and George as to what song is played in the morning.” In 2021 he said Waka Waka by Shakira was a favourite tune — “there’s a lot of hip movements going along, a lot of dressing-up. Charlotte particularly is running around the kitchen in her dresses and ballet stuff” — but it seems that Swift has now taken Shakira’s crown with Team Wales.
William is back on dad duty on Saturday. He and Catherine are expected to attend the school sports day at Lambrook, Berkshire. The Wales children are said to be very keen on sport, with George an able footballer and Charlotte a talented cricketer.
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On Friday, the Waleses marked William’s birthday publicly with a photograph of him and the children holding hands jumping over a sand dune, taken by the Princess of Wales in Norfolk last month, with the message: “Happy birthday Papa, we all love you so much”, signed “C” for Catherine.
