Seven ways Prince George's life is better than the average 7-year-old's
Prince George is celebrating his seventh birthday with his family in Norfolk, where they have been living since lockdown began.
It’s safe to say the young prince, and future king, has a few advantages over most seven-year-olds, but his parents do their best to make life as normal as possible for him and his siblings.
The family has marked several birthdays in lockdown - first Louis’s second, then Charlotte’s fifth, as well as William’s 38th.
Here are just some of the ways life is pretty sweet for this seven-year-old.
He’s already collected a lot of stamps in his passport
Though he doesn’t travel with his parents as often now that he is in school, George certainly collected a lot of stamps in his passport as a toddler.
He joined his parents on a royal tour in Australia and New Zealand before his first birthday, and also went to Canada, where he had company in the form of his little sister, Princess Charlotte.
The young siblings also went to Poland and Germany with their parents.
Read more: Chocolate cake and gun salutes: How the Royal Family celebrates birthdays
He’s met some impressive people
If we were to meet a president, we would be star-struck.
But when Barack Obama met George, it was the world leader who was in awe of the young Prince.
Obama called George “adorable” after meeting him at Kensington Palace in 2016.
He went onto joke: “Last week Prince George showed up to our meeting in his bath robe. That was a slap in the face. A clear breach of protocol.”
He’s an influencer
Following in his mother’s footsteps, George has the power to sellout clothes when he wears them.
The dressing gown he wore when he stayed up late to meet Barack and Michelle Obama sold out, with the company remarking people went “crazy” for it.
It’s also reported his shoes have sold out.
With his parents making sure he and Louis wear affordable pieces, such as the Mango T-shirt he sported in his seventh birthday portrait, this is a trend that could continue.
But George hasn’t just had an impact on clothes. In 2017, lentil sales spiked after it was revealed that George might have been served them at school.
Antoine Wassner, the chairman of Sabarot, a local lentil merchant in Le Puy-en-Velay in France, told The Times it was the “star effect you get as soon as a VIP is seen with a product”.
He’s already been named on best dressed lists
Kudos to his parents here, but George gets all the glory as he has already appeared on best dressed lists.
In 2018, he became the youngest person to be named on Tatler’s best dressed list, joining his mother and his aunt, Meghan Markle.
In 2015 he made GQ’s list, too.
While Tatler has praised him for his “Christopher Robin chic”.
He gets the best of both worlds at Christmas
His great-grandmother, the Queen, is a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas, with most of the celebrations taking place on Christmas Eve.
The family gathers for a tea, present-giving (nothing over the top) and then a meal together in the evening.
But according to The Daily Beast, Kate also likes to make sure the kids get something of the type of Christmas she enjoyed as a child, with stockings and presents on Christmas Day too.
It means George and the other royal kids get the best of both worlds.
He has devoted (and high-profile) godparents, who spoil him
Author Julia Samuel was a close friend of George’s late grandmother, Princess Diana, and she has continued a tradition that makes life hard for dad Prince William.
Asked if she was a good godmother on a podcast, she said: “I am pretty good. She [Princess Diana] was godmother to my son, so I do to George what she did to us, which is give impossible toys that are really noisy, take a lot of making.
“So I come in, slightly tipped by the size of the present that William has to spend days putting together and then put all the machinery together and it makes awful tooting noises, and lights flashing, and that makes me laugh and it makes George laugh.”
And another of his godparents is the Duke of Westminster, who is one of Britain’s wealthiest men.
He stands to inherit a lot - but he’s just a normal kid for now
When Prince George becomes king, some time in the distant future, he will inherit the Duchy of Lancaster, the portfolio of land and financial investment which is held for the monarch.
The Queen made £23m in the financial year ending 2020 from the duchy, so it should have George sorted.
But his parents have tried to make his life normal for now, despite what’s coming. In 2016, speaking about his son’s future, William said: “As far as we are concerned within our family unit, we are a normal family.
“I love my children in the same way any father does, and I hope George loves me the same way any son does to his father.
“There’ll be a time and a place to bring George up and understand how he fits in, in the world.”
The couple certainly don’t seem in a rush to add any pressure to those young shoulders.