Princess Charlotte's tears cause Prince William to make drastic change to appearance
The Prince of Wales shared his daughter Princess Charlotte's funny reaction the first time he decided to grow his beard.
Prince William, 42, first showed off his new facial hair in a video message to congratulate Team GB after the Paris 2024 Olympics in August.
In an interview with UK print media in South Africa, where he admitted it had been "the hardest year" of his life, William was also quizzed about his bearded appearance.
Laughing, he revealed his nine-year-old daughter's opinion, saying: "Well Charlotte didn’t like it the first time. I got floods of tears the first time I grew a beard, so I had to shave it off. And then I grew it back."
Just a couple of weeks later, he was pictured clean-shaven as he and Kate attended a church service at Crathie Kirk near Balmoral.
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But as he resumed his royal duties after his summer duties, he had grown his facial hair once again as he visited the Homelessness: Reframed exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London.
The Prince was last seen with a beard on Christmas Day in 2008, but it was reported that his late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, had asked him to shave off his beard while he was on a military secondment.
Up until recently, soldiers were not permitted to grow their facial hair while in the British Army.
The guidelines were relaxed in March and now state that beards and moustaches must be neat, properly groomed and will be routinely checked.
The Prince of Wales spoke with UK print media as he concluded his four-day visit to Cape Town for the Earthshot Prize Awards, where he emphasised the key thing for businesses finding solutions to repair the planet is impact, adding: "We need to translate the sort of effort that we put into the visibility of the prize and particularly the visibility of the solutions."
And when asked how his year had been amid his wife and father's cancer diagnoses, he said: "It's been dreadful. It's probably been the hardest year in my life. So, trying to get through everything else and keep everything on track has been really difficult. But I'm so proud of my wife, I'm proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done. But from a personal family point of view, it's been brutal."
Admitting Lebo M's performance left him "emotional" at the star-studded ceremony, he said he hoped Kate and his three children had been able to watch the awards during the live YouTube stream.
