Since the election, I’ve avoided the news for the most part, and during the holidays, I completely tapped out of even reading the headlines. So, I’m playing catch-up – on New Year’s Day, an American citizen named Shamsud-Din Jabbar carried out a terrorist attack in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Jabbar lived in Texas and he rented a pickup truck there, then drove the truck to NOLA and used the truck as a weapon, intentionally driving the truck into a huge crowd of people on Bourbon Street. Fifteen people died, including Jabbar. It also appears that Jabbar was affiliated with or inspired by ISIS. The attack is being investigated as terrorism and people have been playing politics with all of this for days. The names of the victims were released on Friday and Saturday, and as it turns out, one of the victims had a connection the British royal family. One of the victims was Edward Pettifer, and he was the stepson of Tiggy Legge-Bourke. Tiggy was Prince William and Harry’s nanny and friend. Tiggy is also Prince Archie’s godmother.
A man with close ties to the British royal family has been identified as one of the 15 victims killed in the New Orleans attack on Jan. 1.
Edward Pettifer, the stepson of Prince William and Prince Harry’s former nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke, died from “blunt force injuries” after Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, drove a truck into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street, the Metropolitan Police confirmed in a news release.
The 31-year-old, who lived in Chelsea, West London, had been visiting Louisiana with a friend, UK newspapers The Times and The Sun reported.
Legge-Bourke, 59, married Edward’s father, former Coldstream Guards officer Charles Pettifer, in 1999. She worked as a nanny for William, 41, and Harry, 40, shortly after King Charles and Princess Diana’s separation in 1993 to 1999.
PEOPLE understands that King Charles is upset by the tragedy and has expressed condolences to the family.
Legge-Bourke was close with William and Harry as their nanny and remains so years later. The brothers attended her wedding and she attended theirs in 2011, and 2018 respectively. She is also godmother to Harry and Meghan Markle’s son Prince Archie.
Prince William posted a statement on social media and, as People Mag notes, King Charles has been in touch with Tiggy and her husband. It’s been clear that William and Harry kept in touch with Tiggy into adulthood, but I didn’t know that Charles still speaks to Tiggy. Anyway, this story is so sad. The whole thing is awful. 2025 got off to a horrendous start and it’s just going to get worse after the inauguration.
Catherine and I have been shocked and saddened by the tragic death of Ed Pettifer. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the Pettifer family and all those innocent people who have been tragically impacted by this horrific attack. W
— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) January 4, 2025
The royal family pays tribute to the British man killed in the New Orleans attack, a 31-year-old who was the stepson of Prince William and Prince Harry's former nanny. https://t.co/0evfHxkKpM
— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 4, 2025
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- OLD BAILEY PIC SHOWS ROYAL NANNY TIGGY LE BURKE LEAVING THE LAUNCH OF THE NEW RALPH LAUREN STORE IN NEW BOND STREET LONDON, TONIGHT 5/5/99 Ref: B25_126831_32866 Date: COMPULSORY CREDIT: UPPA/Photoshot,Image: 501964395, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call Photoshot London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 New York Office Tel : + 1 646-429-8731 Hamburg Office Tel +49 40 28 78030, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- OLD BAILEY PIC SHOWS ROYAL NANNY TIGGY LE BURKE LEAVING THE LAUNCH OF THE NEW RALPH LAUREN STORE IN NEW BOND STREET LONDON, TONIGHT 5/5/99 Ref: B25_126831_33026 Date: COMPULSORY CREDIT: UPPA/Photoshot,Image: 501965757, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call Photoshot London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 New York Office Tel : + 1 646-429-8731 Hamburg Office Tel +49 40 28 78030, Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- TIGGY LEGGE-BOURKE Friend of HRH Prince of Wales COMPULSORY CREDIT: UPPA/Photoshot Photo UIW 010994/B-21a 07.02.1996,Image: 502658304, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call Photoshot Global HQ – London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , also New York Office Tel : + 1 646-429-8731 and Hamburg Office Tel +49 (0)40 530 240 5959, Model Release: no, Credit line: Photoshot / Avalon
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- PRINCE HARRY TALKS TO HIS FORMER NANNY TIGGY PETIFER AS HE TAKES PART IN HIS PASSING-OUT SOVEREIGN’S PARADE AT SANDHURST MILITARY ACADEMY IN BERKSHIRE. 12 APRIL 2006. PICTURE /,Image: 542499229, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Florida: +1 239 689 1883 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Anwar Hussein / Avalon
So sad. I’m in Vegas and the cyber truck explosion here was horrible, too. I thought tRump eliminated ISIS??
I’ve also been saying away from the news so this is the first face of a victim I have seen. Perhaps that’s why I’m emotionally touched so deeply. Or it could be simple empathy.
To learn that someone you love and had watched and aided grow up – from a maternal role – has passed away in such a horrible senseless and sudden way must be so devastating. To not have been there for their last moments, to know that they were likely scared and alone is heartbreaking.
I’m so sad for everyone affected by this terrible attack. Their families will never recover. So much senseless grief and loss.
I hope everyone effected has a solid loving compassionate support system in place and are given the time they will need to grieve such a violent destruction of life.
Tiggy was more than a normal nanny. Or why we never hear of Barbara Barnes and her family?
What do you mean, specifically?
She was William and Harry’s nanny during an incredibly challenging time in their lives. The separation of their parents and the loss of their mother.
It makes sense that they would be emotionally attached to a caregiver who showed them love and kindness and compassion and tried to give them comfort and support during the darkest days of their childhoods – if not their lives.
I don’t think it’s a strange or strong leap to think that she cares deeply for them and they for her.
Heck I was a nanny to a little girl years before I had my own children and I still remember her and think of her with so much affection and love. If they reached out now – decades later – I would show up for her / them.
She clearly was a big part of Harry’s and William’s recovery from the separation of their parents and the death of their mother. Without her they would have been left to flounder while Charles wallowed in the comfort Camzilla provided him. I don’t know what you’re insinuating or what the death of Barbara Barnes has to do with this but if you want to make pronouncements like this at least back them up with something other than lurid hints.
Totally agree, @blubb. I don’t seem to recall any other Royal Nanny publicly dissing the mothering qualities of the parent of their charges.
Barbara Barnes was fired when William was four and was forbidden from contacting the children. I doubt they have much, if any, memory of her.
Rest in peace to this young man.
Is it just me, or is the way William wrote a little bit odd? It’s the P & P of Wales site and he says Catherine and I and signs it W. Mr. Tea and I would have said “we have been …” and signed it with both our names/initials.
I think it’s one of his many passive-aggressive ways to deliberately leave Kate out of almost everything.
Bulliam making this public statement is yet another example of why H has insisted: “I want a family, NOT an institution.”
Pettifer was a private citizen, not part of the institution and yet, Bully had to do the bidding of his shitmedia overlords with this performative nonsense. So now the shitmedia will hv a few stories to write in
which they drive a narrative about where’s H’s statement.
I’m sure H&M hv already communicated their condolences to Pettifor’s family. Even chucky kept his comm private (even tho his spox made sure to tell the shitmedia that he did it privately.)
I guess now the narrative will turn to breathless funeral watch: “will Harry attend?”
Everything about William is for show. It is one thing to advise the media that the family was contacted but there was no need to make that message public.
BTW, this tragedy re the death of Tiggy’s stepson and, therefore it’s connection to the windsors, is a perfect example of why they’ve always needed a central PR office (I guess it wd naturally be run from BP) to reduce the number of own-goals from them over the decades.
It wd hv made perfect sense to hv entered the modern era (i:e post-the end of colonialism) with such an office. As such, the heirs (chucky & now bully) wdnt hv been allowed to run amok, creating what has amounted to rival courts, being indisciplined and always going off message.
If the institution had been properly branded as the British Royal Family & Firm (BRFF), then they all wd hv been better able to keep the line between the business and the family clearly delineated, such that sooooo many of their tragic mistakes wd hv been avoided.
All communications should be centred at and issued by BP.
Simple as that.
This was very sad news, but hearing of Harry and William’s nanny also reminded me that Nanny Maria has not been referenced in years. They don’t even say if she’s left. Seems odd.
There were articles as recently as September. She’s apparently still with them even though even Louis is in school.
There’s no way Kate is wrangling three kids, sorting out their homework, meals, uniforms, bed time, making lunches, taking them to sports /activities. They’ve always had several nannies they just don’t want people to know. It’s silly because loads of regular people have nannies or private child care.
I think Tiggy came from an aristocratic family and were friends of Charles. Tiggy was photographed going to Archie’s christening but were any of his god-parents ever confirmed, or is everyone just assuming?
My memory as well. Tiggy was “one of them” as all the other nannies were from working class.
I don’t think any of Archie’s godparents have been publicly confirmed but the one I do believe is Harry’s school friend that has visited with them in California. The younger of the two van Straubenzees.
As I recall, everyone loved Tiggy except Diana, who felt Tiggy was trying to take her place. As part of gaining the interview, Bashir gave Diana false evidence that Tiggy was having an affair with Charles & had had an abortion. Diana, deliberately in front of others, told Tiggy she was “sorry about the baby.” Not Diana’s best moment.
The BBC eventually apologized to Tiggy for what Bashir had done.
Harry & William were fortunate to have had Tiggy, rather than Camilla or other not nice & affectionate person, at their side when they were with Charles.
At least that’s what I recall.
I remember it a bit differently, and Tiggy absolutely was trying to replace Diana at least in the eyes of her children. While Diana was alive she would say, publicly, really pissy stuff about Diana. There was the one instance when she said something like Diana gives the boys what they want (for example movies, etc.) and I give them what they need (hunting, fishing, etc). Basically saying that Diana was not a good mother.
There were also times that William would be pissed at his mother or not want to spend vacation time with her and he preferred spending the time with Tiggy so the boys would go be with her on vacation. As far as I’m concerned, that is inappropriate. No nanny should further the alienation of a mother from her children, no matter whose fault. Tiggy should have just said spend the time with your mother, William. Things like that also did lead me to believe that Tiggy wanted to be Charles’ wife number two.
It would also not surprise me if, and I would expect, Tiggy having done a number on the kids, i.e, pointing out Diana’s failings as a mother. It’s not normal to me that William would want to run to his nanny when he was pissed at his mother. And yes, William also used Tiggy to hurt his mother. But Tiggy absolutely refused to stay in the background though, like a normal nanny, and, allegedly, would run to the Press making backstabbing comments about Diana.
Yes, Diana made a pissy comment to her about the supposed abortion because she had been misled. However, I think the things that Tiggy did were worse and absolutely did lead to Diana’s frustration with her.
T i g g y did put down publicly down Diana as a mother. Charles allowed it. The media called out early on Charles displays of pda with t i g g y. William also used t i g g y to in effect hurt his mother. He invited t I g g y to go to an Eton picnic after Diana had prepared the lunch. Diana then invited harry to go with her to have a picnic. William was petty even then.
Camilla did not love t i g g y. She called her the hired help and was instrumental in having t i g g y dismissed. The media showed photos of Charles showing pda to t i g g y who admitted she had a crush on charles
T i g g y publicly called will.and harry her boys when Diana was still alive. That would usually be grounds for dismissal putting down the mother that way.
I would highly recommend that the global community stop vacationing in the U.S. and certainly don’t consider moving here. It’s not safe, this is who we are, and you can’t afford a U.S. medical bill. It’s a shame. We have amazing cities and breathtaking natural wonders. But it’s not worth the risk.
While I understand the grief – people with axes to grind, mental health issues, acts of terror, mass murder and atrocities are certainly not specific to the US. This is most certainly not who I am, nor is it who we are as a nation.
@mayp
But if adult Harry decided Tiggy, like Camilla, had *deliberately* been cruel to his mother, would he have, as believed, made her Archie’s godparent?
I (obviously!) didn’t follow the Diana v Tiggy tale very closely decades ago. But we both grieve with her now.