The Daily Mail gossip columnist Richard Eden seems especially invested in mentioning the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as often as possible these days, right? It’s almost as if… simply mentioning “Harry” or “Meghan” gets his stories and tweets more coverage and attention. He even puts their names into stories that have nothing to do with them, like this one. Apparently, Princess Anne doesn’t even have an email account.
Meghan Markle was said to be upset when told she had to give up social media on marrying into the Royal Family, but Princess Anne is delighted to avoid digital technology. Meaghan Kall, of the UK Health Security Agency, has revealed that, while she was being honoured as a ‘Covid unsung hero’ at Windsor Castle last month, she asked the Princess Royal if they could connect on Twitter. Anne replied: ‘Goodness me, no! I don’t even have an email account.’
Princess Anne is 71 years old. You could argue that it’s a generational thing, but… email has been around for thirty-plus years. Plenty of 70-somethings have email. Plenty of 80-somethings have email! I would understand it if she had no idea about Twitter, Instagram or TikTok. I would expect her to know nothing about social media platforms and what happens there. But this is EMAIL. Do people just send her snail-mail all the time? Surely she has a secretary or assistant, someone around her must have email?
As for Meghan and social media – Meghan paused her Instagram and ended The Tig months before her engagement. She did it on her own, because she was anticipating it. She wasn’t ordered to shut it down.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- WINDSOR, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 10: Princess Anne, Princess Royal attends a reception for winners of the Queen’s Awards For Enterprise at Windsor Castle on November 10, 2021 in Windsor, England.,Image: 642624749, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- The Princess Royal speaks to university representatives during a reception after presenting the Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for higher and further education for 2020-2022 during a ceremony at St James’s Palace, London. Picture date: Thursday February 17, 2022. The Queen’s Anniversary Prizes are awarded every two years to universities and colleges whose work has been judged to show excellence, innovation and impact in any field or discipline, and to be of a benefit to society, as well as the institutions themselves.,Image: 663270182, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- The Princess Royal speaks to university representatives during a reception after presenting the Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for higher and further education for 2020-2022 during a ceremony at St James’s Palace, London. Picture date: Thursday February 17, 2022. The Queen’s Anniversary Prizes are awarded every two years to universities and colleges whose work has been judged to show excellence, innovation and impact in any field or discipline, and to be of a benefit to society, as well as the institutions themselves.,Image: 663277656, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
Princess Anne may not have a personal email account but I’m sure someone on her team has email (multiple someones.) There is no Princess royal twitter account but her activities are often covered by the Royal Family’s twitter.
@Becks1 – Agree with you 100%. Anne “has” an email account but she does not engage with it hands on. Her staff engages with her email account.
Yeah, there’s definitely some sort of account for her, but tbh I’m not at all surprised to hear that Anne has nothing to do with any of it.
My former boss was only a little bit younger than she is, and he struggled with the simplest things. He would PRINT every single email he received. It used to drive us insane. I don’t think it’s all due to age, but there are definitely people who have a much harder time getting used to how to navigate anything online (hi mom).
My sister is 74, has numerous emails and conducts Zoom meetings, worldwide at times, and conducted my sisters death ceremony online last year. She is the master of technology so it’s not an age thing, when you need it, you learn how to do it and get it done.
@ Lorelei, your boss was an idiot.
Oh to add- I think not having a personal email (if that is in fact true) is more a sign of privilege than age. She doesn’t have one bc she doesn’t need one; what, is her electricity bill going to her email? don’t be silly, her people take care of all that.
My Mom is 80 and also struggles a bit with technology. She was a public elementary school teacher, but retired before computers were really used in those classrooms. She had to expand her comfort zone after my Dad died. She has one email address (that used to be Dad’s) and can pay her bills on line (but that is only after I set everything up). I think she has a standing appointment with the Genius Bar at the Apple Store near her for every time her hearing aids fail to connect with her phone. But she does read the newspaper on line and does Wordle every day.
Sorry that’s not age-related that’s your boss.. Someone of Anne’s background probably considers email plebs work.
I taught email / computer stuff to over 60s 20 years ago so there’s no shortage of 70 /80/90 using email. I had 90 year olds then. My 95 year old uncle zooms with his os kids on his own. Email among my 80ish crowd is absolutely normal.
I’ve seen plenty of people who are now in their 80s, 70s, even one in their 60s that struggle with things like emails.
It is partly an age thing, as in that they grew up with other technology, kept up with perhaps the next gen’s technology and then the next, but at some point fell behind. Not everyone finds it easy to switch.
I know someone in their late 70s who is very good with email, etc, even knows how Instagram works, but he had to use the internet constantly in his office job. People who are of the same age who worked in different environments have not always been able to keep up with the times.
Think it’s a bit harsh to call people names who might not be that fast or had difficulty keeping up.
I’d guess Princess Anne has more opportunities and possible help than most, but that doesn’t make it easy for everyone who has less of that.
Lucky her to have someone else clean up that mess. I used to keep my work account fairly organized, but after retiring don’t have the same impetus to tackle personal accounts. Still get plenty of junk and semi-junk mail even after installing spam filters and unsubscribing.
I think the queen is the same way, only more so–completely isolated from events around her, news filtered through a team, utterly ignorant of what is really happening.
It’s a weird snobbery, like the writer who only uses a typewriter or longhand, instead of a computer.
On the one hand, having ones news filtered for you is just rife with potential for people to abuse it. One the other hand, she’s quite literally too old for that shit. My Dad can’t be bothered with any of it outside of work email, but my Mom emails incessantly (she’s always got an article she wants you to read) and she filters personal email to my Dad. Sometimes I wonder if she keeps things from him or spins it. My mother is known for making wildly in accurate assumptions about stuff she reads. I can only imagine the terrible spin on things the Queen’s courtiers give her.
Anne has an email account. She just has a member of staff who manages it.
Yeah, I’m not really sure which palace aide thought this was a good look for Anne, but they have utterly failed.
My Grandma died at 91 in 2010, and she was proficient at email. When the rota blab about modernizing the monarchy, surely they are aiming higher than “able to email”, so I am super curious who they think this benefits. People with one and a half feet in the grave is all I’ve got. Go ino the light, Princess Anne doesn’t email either?
Of course she has an email account handled on her behalf by someone else, she just doesn’t want to connect directly with people.
Meghan also had SM accounts as a “working” royal, as do W&K, PC and QE herself. It’s a good thing Anne has “people” to handle these things for her since she obviously can’t do it herself. Or was that all a hint to the lady that she didn’t want to connect?
I read it as a “hint”. Right up there with: “ I switched baristas”. I can believe that she doesn’t have a public email account. I can also believe that she has had an email account in the past, doesn’t use one now, and relies on staff to deal with the emails while she uses her phones for contacts that she actually wants to have.
As an aside, Anne’s clothes often seem made of beautiful fabrics.
Anne does wear beautiful fabrics! I love a majority of them too!!
Whenever I see Anne, I think of that story about TQ being shown bolts of fabric when she traveled. I bet Anne was the recipient of a lot of this fabric.
She did an appearance with the queen today in which she wore the same dress she wore this past Saturday to attend her ex-husband’s daughter’s wedding. I was just surprise that she did a rewear so close together.
I’m jealous. I long for the day I can afford an assistant to run twitter for me and answer my emails.
I would personally be very offended if the people supposedly set to rule over me and my family couldn’t even use a basic technology that has been common for over 3 decades. That level of disconnect from and incapacity with the actual world you live in should give anyone pause. What else doesn’t she understand, and how might that lack of understanding affect how this very influential person interacts with the world?
The bar is low. She gets bragged on for not knowing how to do things, carrying her own suitcase once and for being “keen” to be an engineer if she only wasn’t saddled with being a royal. K isn’t the only one embiggened for not much.
This was my reaction. This isn’t quaint or charmingly eccentric. It’s out-of-touch.
(My lovely late Mom learned how to use her phone to text, email and post on Facebook in her 80s.)
She most definitely has one or more email accounts which are are handled by her secretaries. Although I am pretty sure she does not even know how to turn on a desktop computer to save her life. What a privileged life she has led for over seven decades. An army of servants prepare and serve her meals, clean her homes, do her laundry, drive her everywhere she goes, and of course they handle her emails.
I wish I didn’t have an email account either 😆
@GirlNinja, same! Although it feels like email has been slowly phased out and most everything is done via text now. Most of the emails I receive are order confirmations; even my doctor’s office sends everything via text now. I know some teenagers who don’t even have email addresses, it’s all about texting or DM’ing on SM.
We feds seem to be stuck with email at work, though. And daily have to wade through stuff.
This just shows how removed from real life she is. You need an email to function in today’s world. Getting a job, communicating with your kid’s school, getting a Covid test. It takes modern technology. My parents are in their late 80s, not remotely tech savvy and have email-because they have to. She sounds ridiculously out of touch.
HRH Princess of Mothballs and Mustiness. Sorry, not sorry. I mean if even the Queen can Zoom then what is her problem? I think she just can’t be bothered with anything, she gives off that vibe.
She probably does have email but it all go through assistants.
I totally believe it. She doesn’t have to actually do anything in her life, so why need email, ya know? She just lets one of the staff know if she needs anything and they arrange everything for her.
Well her office has an email account, otherwise she wouldn’t have a constant schedule of events. Most people hate picking up the phone to call people to organize things, especially the millennial generation. I only call when I absolutely have to. Even doing something as basic as scheduling a doctor’s appointment is something I dread lol. Next she’s going to tell us she doesn’t ever text/has never sent a text message….
@Amelie, I actually wouldn’t be that surprised to hear that Anne doesn’t even have a cellphone, or if she does, it’s some archaic flip phone that she uses only if she needs to text someone something time-sensitive and having a staff member do it isn’t an option. She definitely seems like the type of person who sees herself as “above all of that” or some nonsense.
Don’t need an email address to exchange grocery bags full of cash for favors!
Did Anne exchange grocery bags full of cash for favors?
Maybe I am being unfair to Anne. She has never been caught exchanging cash for favors. Just her two brothers. And her dad had unaccounted for millions of pounds lying around at the time of his death. And her mom, the Queen, changed legislation to protect her wealth.
The whole family is rotten and I would bet Anne’s done shady s–t too. She’s just smart enough to keep her mouth shut about it.
@A – I was just trying be funny in a snarky way as anything the BRF does does not surprise me! LOL!
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I’m team Anne on this one. Email is the worst. Most of mine are random things from stores I’ve ordered from (even when I never opted in to their emails) or things I have to attend to for the nonprofits I work with. I was able to minimize my work emails, thankfully. But if I were a princess with other folks to handle things for me? No way would I bother with email. I bet she texts, though.
@Lizzie Bathory – I am with you 100%!
Ditto!! The number of emails I unsubscribe to is ridiculous!! Plus it turns me off from tending to my email as well.
Add to the fact that I will make donations or sign petitions which is then passed to the groups which makes it unmanageable.
After reading your post I feel like a failure for not having been born in royal family in Europe. Poor peasant me.
This is sort of class indicator, like the Countess of Grantham asking what, pray tell, a “weekend” is? No doubt Anne has staff to manage and post on her accounts, she needn’t sully her own hands learning how to do it anymore than she needs to know how to boil and egg or make a bed. She has PEOPLE to do those things.
You are never too old to learn if the desire is there. I am in my mid 70’s and my husband in his 80’s. We both use email, online banking and direct investing, as well as instagram. I play bridge on line with friends with our cell phones connected. (which was such a boon through covid).Twitter has never been a thing for us. It’s ageist to believe that someone who is 71 is too old to learn a new skill unless sadly they have cognitive impairment. I can’t imagine someone relying on staff to filter all their email and news. You would think Princess Anne would have a private email just for family and close friends. Such a cocooned life sounds quite insular….. but I guess thats the Royal way.
Would not surprise me if she had multiple emails but letting it be known that she doesn’t so no one can ask her for her email.
I don’t know much about Anne. I remember when she married her first husband, and when she divorced. That’s about it. What I’ve learned about Anne I’ve learned from the comments here. She sounds like someone who doesn’t care what people think, and, therefore, she says whatever she wants. I think she prides herself on that. It might even be admirable at times, but does anyone think that’s a good strategy 100% of the time? She would knowingly say something cutting to someone without thinking twice. Not something I would advocate for anyone to do. I wonder what she has said to Meghan and Harry in the past?
I am not suprised Anne seems to value privacy a lot along with the older generation of royals.
For Meghan there was a story a while back in a british tabloid about her being told the expectations of becoming a royal member. One of them she could not comment verbal/writing in a public platform without approval from the staff.
So I was not surprised when her social platforms went MIA.
She communicates only through scrolls hidden in her signature hairstyle
I’m 60 and I sometimes stay offline for days at a time.
So, part of Anne not emailing/SM does not surprise me.
It is a generational thing, I have a cell which I carry in case of a family emergency.
Less than 10 people have my cell number.
Family and close friends know that if I’m out, leave a message on the landline and I response ASAP.
I do agree that many sites, RR, tabs all mention H&M for clicks, even when the article has little do with H&M. Gotta make a living.
She has managed to live her life successfully without the aforementioned social media and email.
She is comfortable living this way. Good on her.
You have answered the question on why Meghan.
Thank you.
The scolding finger in the black glove annoys the hell out of me.
This coming from the royal patron of Women in Science & Engineering (WISE).