Months ago, before the coronation, the Times of London tried to do some kind of image-rehabilitation on Tom Parker Bowles, Queen Camilla’s middle-aged son. Tom is a well-connected food writer and… well, let’s just say, that Times piece was an education. I finally put all of the pieces together about how the gossip about Prince William and Rose Hanbury traveled around those circles and what role Tom and Camilla played. Well, Tom was married to Sara Parker Bowles for thirteen years and they have a son and daughter together, both of whom were included in the coronation. Sara and Tom have been divorced since 2018, but she’s kept his name personally and professionally. Which is why it’s so interesting that now Sara is getting her own interview and profile in the Times, all to promote her new business: Wardrobe Revivals. Sarah basically consults with women and tells them how to put together outfits with the pieces already in their closets. For £500 a session. Some highlights from this very name-droppy interview:

She received an email from the palace: “It said, ‘The King would like to know what Lola wants for her birthday.’ It was just surreal. Like language from a fairytale.” She has known her children’s step-grandfather, the 62nd monarch of England, for 20 years. They call his queen “Gaga”. The children, she says, have until now been relatively blasé about it all, holidaying at Balmoral and generally hanging out on the edges of history. “Birkhall was never glamorous,” she says. “But it all feels different now. It’s who we are, but it does feel different.”

Her divorce from Tom Parker Bowles: “It will be a source of sorrow for ever. I’ll never not be sad about it, but one day we’ll be able to say we are really good friends.”

Her son Freddy got to be the king’s page at the coronation: “He wanted to go in the gold carriage, but he didn’t get to. Then his face on the balcony — I could see he was just like, woah! My favourite part of the whole day was that he did a little wave that he wasn’t supposed to. I was quite obsessively watching him. But I knew by then he was going to be OK, that I could sort of let go.”

How Sara and Tom met, her thoughts on Camilla: “I knew who Tom was because my friend had been at Oxford with him. But I remember going back to his flat, seeing a picture of [his mum] and thinking, ‘This is f***ing bonkers.’ It was still the hate years. [Camilla] wasn’t accepted at all. She didn’t talk about it. She was just very brave and uncomplaining. Tom was worried it would happen all over again when the Queen died, but it has been the opposite. Camilla was really, really nervous. She wanted the people that she loved around her. [The King] wasn’t nervous at all. But Camilla didn’t ask for any of this. She’s the human face of the royal family, because she’s not part of it. You need those outsiders really.”

Sara’s thoughts on Kate: “She looked absolutely amazing and that’s pretty hard to do in blue, white and red ceremonials,” she replies, fashion editor mode engaged. Then she softens. “There’s a new confidence to her, which I’m so happy to see. Because it’s a pretty sh-t job.”

Tom never sold out his family: “He was always really strict about not doing Hello! or anything. I probably would have got a bit high on it all and said yes. But he was right because, when the sh-t hits the fan, if you’ve sold your story, they come after you badly.”

She went to the Sussexes’ wedding? These days she feels more resilient, thanks to a blue velvet dress from the ultra-cool label the Vampire’s Wife that she wore to Harry and Meghan’s wedding in 2018. “I felt really good that day,” she says. “But the comments online…” She shudders. “They actually made me stronger because I knew that I’d got it right. I just thought, ‘I don’t give a sh-t what you think about me.’ ”

Post-divorce life: “It’s taken a long time to feel better. Men just go and find someone else. [Her ex-husband’s girlfriend, Alice Procope, died in 2021 of a cancer that went undiagnosed during Covid.] No criticism of Tom; that’s how men deal with it. Whereas I turned 50 this year and society just makes you feel invisible. I have real beef with how women my age are perceived.”

Camilla’s happy ending: “Camilla was always in it for the right reasons. It’s not right for someone to have gone through what she did, but it’s come to fruition — not being Queen, but to be with the person that you love…. Whenever I get cross with Tom, I say, ‘Who do you think you are? Is your mum the Queen of England?’ And now, actually, she bloody is.”

[From The Times]

I would imagine this kind of interview was cleared by the palace, especially since she’s definitely parroting some palace-issued talking points about Camilla. But I also think Sara comes across well, like she genuinely gets along with her former mother-in-law, that she has affection for Charles and Camilla. It’s always been said that Charles spends much more time with Camilla’s kids and grandkids than his own – Sara and her children have probably spent more time at Birkhall than Harry, William and their children. “She’s the human face of the royal family, because she’s not part of it. You need those outsiders really.” But only when they’re white, I guess.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.