King Charles and Camilla have been undertaking their annual tour of Northern Ireland this week, and I’m including some photos from their visit in this post. They truly do this every spring or early summer – spend about three days in Northern Ireland, check out the local drinks and cuisine, plant a few trees, host a garden party, and do a few walkabouts. It’s been unremarkable this year, although it should be said, Charles will be the last monarch to do any of this. Do you think William will spend three days in Northern Ireland every spring, opening up a castle and glad-handing? No. Come on. The reason why we’re being forced to think about William’s reign (of terror) is because a British radio station wrongly announced Charles’ passing yesterday. Charles isn’t dead, he’s just in Northern Ireland, guys.
A radio station has apologised for “any distress caused” after accidentally announcing that King Charles had died. The erroneous announcement was made on Tuesday afternoon due to a computer error at Radio Caroline’s main studio in Essex.
Station manager Peter Moore wrote on Facebook: “Due to a computer error at our main studio, the Death of a Monarch procedure, which all UK stations hold in readiness while hoping not to require, was accidentally activated on Tuesday afternoon (19 May), mistakenly announcing that HM the King had passed away.
“Radio Caroline then fell silent as would be required, which alerted us to restore programming and issue an on-air apology. Caroline has been pleased to broadcast Her Majesty the Queen’s, and now the king’s, Christmas message and we hope to do so for many years to come. We apologise to HM the king and to our listeners for any distress caused.”
The post did not say how long it was before the mistake was discovered but on Wednesday afternoon, playback for Tuesday’s broadcast between 1.58pm and 5pm was unavailable on the station’s website.
The incident came as the king and queen were in Northern Ireland, where they joined a folk group for a performance. Charles and Camilla also watched dancers and sipped Irish whiskey in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter on the first day of their trip.
This is wild. Even more wild? Radio Caroline interrupted 4 Non Blonde’s “What’s Up” to falsely announce the king’s death. I’m conspiratorial by nature, so I do wonder if this mistake was as innocent as Radio Caroline claims. I’m not saying the conspiracy is about Charles, but I just don’t believe the announcement happened because of a computer glitch. (Also: if this had been real, the Scooter King was in Istanbul, watching football.)
🚨🇬🇧 NEW: The moment Radio Caroline accidentally announced the death of King Charles live on air
King Charles has not passed away pic.twitter.com/RpBzoCmcFa
— Politics Global (@PolitlcsGlobal) May 20, 2026
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- King Charles III and Queen Camilla sample Titanic whiskey during a visit to Titanic Distillers, housed within the restored Edwardian pumphouse that once served the adjoining dry dock, in Belfast, on day one of the royal visit to Northern Ireland Featuring: Queen Camilla, King Charles III Where: Belfast, United Kingdom When: 19 May 2026 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III smells wheaten bread at The Pantry Foodbank in Donard Methodist Church, Newcastle, on day two of the royal visit to Northern Ireland. The initiative provides free food parcels and hot meals, offering vital support to families and isolated individuals Featuring: King Charles III Where: Belfast, United Kingdom When: 20 May 2026 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III and Queen Camilla arrive to meet community heroes from across Northern Ireland during a Royal Garden Party at Hillsborough Castle, on day two of the royal visit to Northern Ireland Featuring: King Charles III, Queen Camilla Where: Hillsborough, United Kingdom When: 20 May 2026 Credit: Chris Jackson/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III and Queen Camilla plant a Malus Royalty tree during a Royal Garden Party at Hillsborough Castle, on day two of the royal visit to Northern Ireland Featuring: King Charles III, Queen Camilla Where: Hillsborough, United Kingdom When: 20 May 2026 Credit: Chris Jackson/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
The derangers who heard this would go on about scoot taking Sussex titles away.
Very weird. I bet William in Istanbul was elated and terrified to hear the news.
No, it was not an accident. They’re not trying to kill Charles (they pray he lives forever, or at least until George is over 21), they’re testing William. To see if they have a window of opportunity before his reaction. They’re setting the stage for a fait accompli scenario in which William is the last to know. Which means they are planning to proceed without him. That’s my take. This can’t go on forever.
How can this possibly test William if they have to take the announcement back 5 minutes later?
Maybe this is a practical joke gone wrong, but unless William was listening to that one radio station how would he even know the death had been announced. The news doesn’t seem to have spread to the other news outlets, like the BBC, which is where you’re more likely to stop and stand still (or freeze) to wait for all the details to come out.
It would make more sense to test William by telling him in the news in private to see how he’d react rather than hoping he’d listen to this one particular radio station (which seems like a major long-shot). And how is it even possible for him to be the last to know anyway? That scenario is impossible to occur due to logistics.
This is to reply to @thinking, I take it you don’t truck with conspiracy theories. No worries. I would simply posit the scenario is not that William is attached to a radio at all times scanning for news of his father’s demise. Though the image sits comfortably enough, given how he has been champing at the bit for his time in the sun. What happens in the state of play, real-time, is that someone from the Home Office or the Royal Household or Mi5 or the Metropolitan Police Royal & Diplomatic Protection Service — ideally all of the above — get pinged. When the media make big announcements about the family, alarms ring. Death, marriage, etc. the households communicate. Through these intermediaries. Unless they don’t. Someone has cut William out of the loop, is my take. A normal back-channel call & response has been cut off. It’s a small thing, it’s subtle, but it’s a shot across the bow.
Given how famous Charles is (literally one of the most famous men on earth), I think a death, even a fake one, would be impossible to hide from William. I guess they could try, but I really don’t think they could pull it off, just simply given how famous Charles is and that whispers would travel at lightning speed and i can’t fathom a son of the king of England, no matter how dense or smart, not knowing something is off.
The sheer scale of Charles’s fame would make this extremely challenging to pull off. Someone, maybe even a journalist looking for comment, would get word back to William.
That makes zero sense and I’m a sucker for a good conspiracy theory.
The government actors you listed would all know before the press announced it.
This was some sort of weird fluke but not anything meant to “test” William. That does not make sense.
“Due to a computer error…” Maybe they set up the AI to do the news and whoops…
My first thought was an AI screw up. It ran the wrong broadcast.
I know fake death announcements happen on social media all the time, but to have a radio station announce your death is strange it seems more strategic.. I don’t buy it was a mistake on an easily verified death they should have double checked imo.
I don’t want to be ghoulish, and I wish Charles well, I liked his address to the Congress very much, but I think it might be easier than one imagines to keep news closely held about his health. And it would not surprise me at all if the person most resolutely ruled out of the loop is his son. I don’t think William is getting regular updates on his father’s progress, his recovery, much less his treatments. They don’t trust him. That speaks volumes. I remember when the late Queen passed away, they kept it from the media for a few hours during which time there was no sign, no ripple, no leak, just everything ticked over as normal. So when the news broke, with the resonance of a coordinated announcement, across TV, Radio, government, etc., you can be sure, several hundred people (even a thousand or more, if you count the media who all “conspired” to keep the news off the air and miraculously off the internet for that entire interlude) all kept schtum. They knew what had happened, they just didn’t tell anyone who was not in the loop. Someone is going to be in charge when this happens and it will not be William. What they do with that situation, is up to them. They might let him run through the motions, in a prescripted way. But they might not.
What fascinates me about this whole saga — going on 10 years now — is that the whole family showdown makes sense if — and only if — you posit that someone has already decided that the monarchy is to end, after the reign of Charles III. They have been telegraphing this for a long time. The last episode of The Crown, was like a valedictory not only to the late Queen, but to the entire institution, the morale being, what’s the point of going on, after her 70-year epic run? She inherited an Empire in which Churchill was the Prime Minister and left a postmodern socialist / market mashup that isn’t even a member of the EU now. If we’re going for maverick freewheeling reboot of the island nation, on its own, the monarchy itself is surplus to requirements. It is baroque and top heavy. Andrew has stained it beyond dry cleaning. Charles and Camilla are barely digestible. William’s motto on a heraldic shield could literally be, “DGAF.” Kate is …lobotomy with a wig plopped on top of it. I mean. The jig is up. William’s entire track record makes sense if you posit *he already knows* and is planning to mount a fight back. It’s not so farfetched. Hence he sees Harry as competition. Not that Harry wants the throne. No one does. But without the throne, what *is* William? He acts like someone ate his lunch. Or snatched his birthright. Maybe that’s exactly what happened and the fact that his father has agreed to it, is the reason he’s so embittered toward him. It’s purely speculative. It’s just the only way to explain a scenario in which any rational observer would say, William is just freaking nuts. We can stomach a few years of Trump, barely, because there is an end, and it will come. This? ….can anyone imagine a lifetime of this???? By a King? I can’t. Really.
YankeeDoodles, I’m not sure about the monarchy ending as soon as Charles died, but I am damn sure that I viscerally oppose your statement, “We can stomach a few years of Trump.” WE CANNOT! He is destroying the world as I write this. Also, we don’t know if “there is an end.” Trump could very well get an illegal third term of the presidency. He may never die–or have a series of impostors take his place IF he dies. This may well be the end of our democracy!
This is really weird. I used to work in radio, and I just do not see how this could happen? Are they running their station by AI?
At the radio stations I worked at, the entire company is forced to listen to what is playing on air all day, meaning that if this happened, it would be noticed IMMEDIATELY. Not because the station went silent for a while. There are on-air producers for every segment, and they are the ones pressing the buttons, etc. They would be straight onto this.
Okay, just looked up Radio Caroline! This was the pirate radio station started in the 60s because the existing radio stations wouldn’t play any independent music. It has a real licence these days, but it’s only a community radio licence, which makes me wonder how big this station is?
They probably run on a shoestring budget, have very few staff, and it would not surprise me if they were using a bunch of automated systems without much human oversight.
It just sounds like a tiny radio station doing something for pr . A joke to get in the mainstream awareness.