This week, celebrities, politicians and academics have been attending events within SXSW London. The original SXSW festival started in Texas, but it’s gone international. A few years back, the Duchess of Sussex took part in a SXSW panel at the OG festival in Texas. I’m sure that didn’t factor into this story whatsoever! On Wednesday, fresh from his visit to a London pub (I wish I was joking), Prince William made an appearance at SXSW London for an event around The Diana Award. As he met some Diana Award recipients, William was asked about period stigma and how he plans to talk about menstruation with Princess Charlotte. Everyone got to see period stigma in real time.
Prince William left one recipient of The Diana Legacy Award impressed by his honest answer to her question about menstrual health. The Prince of Wales, 43, took part in a discussion on young people’s issues as part of the SXSW London Festival on Wednesday, June 3, joining two Diana Award legacy winners for the panel.
One was Vivi Lin, the founder of the NGO “With Red” to tackle period stigma and help people understand menstrual issues, who asked the royal heir about how the topic would be handled in his own family.
“I took the courage to ask him a really important question: I asked him, ‘Are you ready to talk to your daughter about periods?’ and how he is preparing,” she tells PEOPLE, referring to William and Kate Middleton’s 11-year-old daughter, Princess Charlotte.
“He answered genuinely and smiled and said, ‘This is a topic I am not familiar with,’ and it was really lovely,” continued Lin, 28. “But he said he knows it is going to be a conversation that he would need to have in the future. He said he will try to do so with the help of his wife.”
“He acknowledged there is still menstrual stigma across the world and a lot of people don’t know about it,” she added. “Coming from Prince William, that he knows he knows he needs to talk to his daughter — and he needs the help of his wife to talk to her about it — will be really important for a lot of dads with daughters because a lot of people are struggling and don’t know how to talk to their daughters about periods.”
The NGO works on “everything about periods, from education to policy,” and Lin says they work to ensure that, from a young age, women know how to use menstrual products and cope with the menstrual cycle.
Lin said the discussion with Prince William also touched on the disconnect in society.
“He mentioned the loss of human connection,” she explains. “We are pretty much online, all generations, and he was saying how important it was to restore that human-to-human connection and having people look at each other in the eyes and having that conversation in person.”
She says she was impressed by Prince William, including his support of how sports clubs in the U.K. are adapting new systems for female athletes to meet their needs. “We have very different biological cycles, and if we are using the same training schedules, that wouldn’t work,” she says. “He spoke about his passion for football and supporting female football players on this.”
I’m really asking: how does Prince William, a man who has been married for fifteen years and who has lived with a woman for two decades, not know anything about menstruation? “This is a topic I am not familiar with…” Like, he’s not familiar with it at all? He wouldn’t have to get into the nitty-gritty of Kate’s menstrual cycle, but the jig is up – Kate is the mother of three, and she’s had a menstrual cycle the entire time she and William have been together. Heterosexual men being clueless dolts about a significant part of their partners’ lives is insane. And he basically said that he’s going to leave it to Kate to talk to Charlotte about her period. The part about women’s football is important too, because William is patron of England Football, and as such, he should be more than aware of the work being done by elite female athletes on period stigma AND their training.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Britain’s Prince William speaks to two winners of the Diana Award, Sophie Pender, right and Vivi Lin, center, the award which was founded on the late Diana, Princess of Wales’ belief that young people have the power to change their community, their country and the world in London, Wednesday, June 3, 2026.,Image: 1107543822, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: POOL PHOTO, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Kin Cheung/Pool/Avalon
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- Britain’s Prince William poses for photo with two winners of the Diana Award, Sophie Pender, right and Vivi Lin, left, the award which was founded on the late Diana, Princess of Wales’ belief that young people have the power to change their community, their country and the world in London, Wednesday, June 3, 2026.,Image: 1107543761, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: POOL PHOTO, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Kin Cheung/Pool/Avalon
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- Britain’s Prince William speaks with Tessy Ojo CEO of The Diana Award in London, Wednesday, June 3, 2026.,Image: 1107543782, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: POOL PHOTO, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Kin Cheung/Pool/Avalon
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- Britain’s Prince William speaks to two winners of the Diana Award, Sophie Pender, right and Vivi Lin, center, the award which was founded on the late Diana, Princess of Wales’ belief that young people have the power to change their community, their country and the world in London, Wednesday, June 3, 2026.,Image: 1107543840, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: POOL PHOTO, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Kin Cheung/Pool/Avalon
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- Britain’s Prince William speaks to two winners of the Diana Award, Vivi Lin, left and Sophie Pender, the award which was founded on the late Diana, Princess of Wales’ belief that young people have the power to change their community, their country and the world in London, Wednesday, June 3, 2026.,Image: 1107543850, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: POOL PHOTO, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Kin Cheung/Pool/Avalon
One more topic he is completely ignorant of, you do suprise me!!
He couldn’t make it more obvious he doesn’t share a bed with Kate if he tried.
Yep. Not to be graphic but most married men have seen periods in action.
Oh…another PRIME example of why society is so 🤬 up…and as a middle-aged MAN…I would be EMBARRASSED to speak THOSE words in public 😮 This is why I 🥰 the new commercials for period products…they put it ALL out there so MEN CAN FINALLY SEE!
Honestly, who cares what they do at home, for an event like this surely he should be prepped on the topics that are likely to be asked and have some canned non-offensive responses ready to roll out? That’s really all that’s needed and that he just rolls up with apparently zero prep is kind of crazy.
This is the kind of stuff that annoys me the most about Will. This is his JOB. Be prepped for the obvious questions!
That’s my biggest complaint, Cate – this was an event where he knew ahead of time who the recipients of the Diana award were and their areas of interest that they might ask him about! He wasn’t going in blind, he had the opportunity to prepare a knowledgeable answer and just… didn’t. Imagine if he were an actual civil servant instead of a royal and he showed up to an event with this!
The man is flat out lying. He will never talk to his daughter about menstruation or period stigma. Obviously, he has never even spoken to his wife about it or he wouldn’t have said he is ignorant on the subject. I salute this person for asking him, but then don’t just let him off the hook. He wanted to say it’s a yucky topic he can’t be bothered about.
And Charlotte is eleven. I really hope someone broaches the topic. It may already be too late. This is probably one of those tasks that fell to the nanny.
100% the nanny is handling this.
I hate to say it but Kate is so thin, she might not even menstruate anymore. It happens.
Also lying about ever supporting female athletes, he’s attended like 1 women’s soccer game. He couldn’t be bothered to show up and support the women’s team in the World Cup final
I doubt he talks to his daughter about any of the less pleasant aspects of growing up or life. (and I’m not saying periods are less pleasant because of the stigma, I’m saying they’re less pleasant because they are the WORST. I have super heavy and horrible ones and I HATE THEM.)
And yes, my husband knows a lot about my periods, he can’t avoid it, lol. If we had a daughter would he talk to her about it? I’m sure he would but I would probably take the lead (which I do with my boys too.) but I would want him to be open with her about it bc I would want her to feel comfortable enough to say “hey can you pick me up tampons” or “hey I need to stop to use the bathroom because of my period.”
So William can publicly answer a question about periods and reducing stigma but Meghan’s private remark to Kate about hormones was offensive?
Right? I’m actually surprised that William even found himself in this conversation. Did he know beforehand? Does he know that part of discussing periods will also mean discussing hormones? Without putting his finger in a woman’s face for daring to even mention hormones. But good on Vivi Lin for using him to get her period message into People.
I know, right!!??
Dude. How are you not familiar? You have a whole ass wife for 15 years, and a serious girlfriend for 25 ( supposedly). That you were living with before you were married. This just comes across as “ugh, periods!!” And it goes to show that even in this day and age they act like a natural life function is something that can only be spoken to by one parent or the other.
Also not to be grim but if your wife had cancer and you have a preteen daughter, this should have been a conversation y’all had. Who was going to have this conversation with her if something didn’t work out the way that you imagined with a very serious health issue? The nanny? Camilla? Passing it off to Carole I imagine. But like I said before, they say so much without meaning to say it.
I’m guessing his answer was a lot worse than what is being portrayed here. I agree with Kaiser, he should be familiar with menstruation because of his life with Kate. So is it he’s never spoken to Kate about her periods or about Charlotte reaching puberty?
Why do I feel he and Kate won’t talk about birth control when Charlotte starts dating? A princess with an illegitimate child is a major scandal.
Maybe Carole will have to talk to Charlotte.
He won’t but kate is definitely familiar with it. Kate was never prissy with that stuff and if she doesn’t then carole will.
If only because a teen pregnancy would damage the brand, but Charlotte won’t be left in the dark.
It’s another idiosyncrasy of royalty. They want us to think that they don’t have bodily functions.
I’m not going to defend William too hard, because I think that, as with most things, his ignorance on this topic is largely willful. But some men are uninformed about menstruation because the women in their lives have weird hang-ups about their own periods, and think it’s disgusting and impolite to talk about, or at the very least shouldn’t be discussed with men. There are A LOT of these women. I remember my brother’s first wife being horrified when I asked him to pick up some tampons for me when I was like, 17. In college, some of my girlfriends were shocked when I just mentioned to my dad on the phone that my PMS was killing me that month (having lived with these girls, I was like, “do you seriously think your dads didn’t know when YOU had it?!”). Last summer, I got an angry phone call from my husband’s ex because my stepdaughter told her that sometimes her dad would buy her products if he happened to be stopping at the bodega on the way home from work. Apparently that was supposed to be my job. So yeah, there’s a lot of work to be done on the stigma amongst women as well.
And I have absolutely no difficulty believing that Kate is one of these women. She just seems the type who wants men to believe that girls don’t fart or poop. Look how she reacted to Meghan’s mere suggestion that she had normal hormonal stuff going on when she was pregnant.
Baby Brain isn’t even about hormones in the first place, but more about the lack of sleep and general changes which come with a new baby, which make women forgetful. Hormones are just a part of the whole new mom’s baby brain package.
I agree, Kate comes over as a person who would never talk about bodily functions. It’s uncouth and not royal, a princess is above such things as using a toilet, having her period or hormones.
William looks like he’s pleading when he uses those jazz hands.
He and Keen are both awkward at talking to people. They need to stop using the Jazz hands.
TBH I wish more American law makers were honest like this. Men should know more but they don’t so I’d rather they proclaim their ignorance than make laws involving my uterus.
So William being married to Kate for 15 years has no idea how Aunt Flo pays a visit? (This is AA slang for menstrual cycle.)
Any partner who actually shares a bed with a woman knows about menstruation. He’s just telling us they don’t. It is impossible for a man to not know something that happens roughly every 28 for decades.
That said kate would have discussed this with Charlotte already. Her prissy image is something new because she sure wasn’t in her 20s.
William just doesn’t know any of this because he’s not involved in their daily lives the way regular people expect him to be.
I’m confused on why he thinks he’ll be the one to discuss it with Charlotte and Kate will just be there for help. I can’t imagine any daughter wants to talk about that with dad. And at 11, I’m sure she’s already aware of it through mom or her friends. And poor Charlotte having this discussed online.
Shocked, shocked I am, to learn that BullyIdle knows nothing about the intimate details of any woman’s life, let alone the one he is married to or his own daughter.
Mess and fuss and physical realities are for peasants.
This man is clueless. If he is going to talk to George about puberty, he should be aware enough to discuss the corresponding changes in the female body.
This is basic middle school science that he appears to be ignorant of.
Plus Charlotte is 11. They need to have that conversation with her sooner rather than later, because speaking from personal experience, it is absolutely traumatic to start your first period as a pre-teen and have no freaking idea WTF is going on.
In my case, I’d snuck a bike ride on my older brother’s bike the day before …and fell off and painfully onto the cross bar that boys bikes have. I thought the bleeding from my crotch was because I’d injured something inside. So I was afraid to say anything for fear I’d get in trouble, and was terrified, felt like I brought this horror on myself (the whole Catholic stain on your soul/eternal sin stuff can do a number) My home life was super chaotic and I was the 5th child and the conversation got missed (plus I think there was a sense of “she’s the baby, we’ve got time” even though I had obvious boobs at 11 in 4th grade) and my mom, aunts cousins were very sweet after the fact once mom realized what happened. But man it would have been sooo much better to have had that talk before.
William has no excuse for being ignorant and abdicating any responsibility for this. Average age in the UK is 12-13, and some could start earlier. Having a father actively involved in the conversation would make a difference in reducing the shame, secrecy and stigma of what is a normal bodily function.
I wonder if this is another erasure of Meghan, who before she married into that horrid family wrote an article for Time magazine “How Periods Affect Potential,” had highlighted her work with Myna Mahila Foundation (also pre royal), working with other organizations to help end period poverty and encourage normalizing conversations around menstruation, and on her royal biography even highlighted menstrual hygiene. Now, all of a sudden, William wants in on it?
Kate hasn’t had her period, if the surgery she underwent in her youth and the need for surrogacy are true. But regardless of the facts, William seems like a guy who it scares him a pack of pads, let alone a menstruating woman.
Kate is so thin, emaciated even, that she likely won’t have had periods for years.
My thought as well.
@Black Elderberry: Need for surrogacy? What are you talking about? Haven’t seen this written about before. Is this a new item, and wouldn’t it be big news? I thought surrogacy was the lie trolls continual flog about Meghan.
Anyway, I don’t expect fathers to necessarily talk to their daughters about menstruation- most girls would feel more comfortable talking to their mothers. However, men should understand menstruation and be aware of how it can affect women.
Ew. Nah, the derangers say this about Meghan. I’m no fan of Kate, but implying this about her is equally ick.
I can understand Vivi Lin wanting to talk period with a public figure. But boy, asking william showed a serious lack of judgment. Kate could have been asked, even Meghan who at least understand the issues and is still a public figure in the UK.
I have two tween sons. I have had talks with them about menstruation and how things work and what women go thru for decades. I have told them that if a female friend asks to borrow a hoodie because they got their period and need to tie it around their waist to help a girl out no questions asked. WillNot living in the past and pretending women don’t get periods show what an absolute idiot he is.
I can understand how he wouldn’t be familiar with the physiology of menstruation. Most men don’t understand the physiology of getting pregnant, giving birth and post partum, either – and that’s after having had several children.
This guy is so useless. I am also aggravated that somehow it’s women’s work to teach their partners or dates about menstruation. My thing is that people didn’t talk about it for years — Judy Blume taught me and my sister, not my Mom (Irish Catholic, what a surprise). So for many years, I’m as loud about it as I want to be. Someone at the office would say, “you don’t look great,” and I’d say “cramps.” Including the men. They all relied on me, but they didn’t have to go through what I did.
There should be 1 or 2 extra PTO days per month for women. You can argue about the parameters, but men don’t have to deal with bleeding out once a month.
Hi!
I work at a school in Germany. I often hear that Germans have a perception of US Americans being prudish. However, this topic affects us all. The girls in my class are super embarrassed to talk about this and when my child (I accompany her) had an accident and no one was available, I asked if I could talk to her father and she flat out said no. Not defending William but this issue is very uncomfortable for many. Someone above me commented that husbands see their wives’ blood. Mine hasn’t. My mother also taught me to fold my pad well because my father should not see it. But, when I was 10 my father sat me down and explained the whole deal to me. My mother could not do it because of shame. I will never forget that. Gracias papa.
So Willy picked a conference that Meghan attended in Texas and picked a long time Meghan topic that she was advocating for long before she knew these horrible people.. he only proved he is not Meghan, and as far as I’m concerned that answers was absolutely horrible.. he is a father of an eleven year old girl he should have had some one read him the pamphlets on menstruation at the very least. Until men stop acting like this thumb with teeth the stigma won’t go away.
I think that if Willy ever had to pick up menstrual products for Kate — as if! that’s what servants are for! — he’d be performatively appalled by it.
He is not the king yet, but he’s the king of mean-spirited humor.
I would think that most girls would rather discuss it with their mothers if they have one. I realise that that this is now considered old fashioned, but I expect that Charlotte would rather talk to mum.
The thing is: Harry will likely be asked something similar one day and he’ll have a thoughtful, considered take.
And then Billy will co-opt it or mimic it and be lauded in the press. He’s so lacking that Harry is his only benchmark