As we discussed over the weekend, Prince William played up the single dad thing on Friday evening by taking Prince George and Princess Charlotte to Taylor Swift’s Eras concert. Charlotte and George both looked ecstatic to meet Taylor backstage, and there was a video of William “dad-dancing” to “Shake It Off.” Selfies, dancing, two out of three kids looking happy, and arguably the most famous pop star in the world. William actually scored a pretty big win, image-wise, although I enjoy the conversations about whether any of this was a win for Taylor Swift. Personally, I think that’s why Travis Kelce was included in the selfie Taylor posted – she was almost using the “Instagram-official with Travis” thing as a deflection from whatever criticism she might receive for posing with a colonizer.
Again, the Taylor Swift selfies were mostly about William’s image-management more than anything else. But I’ll be generous to William – I think there’s a good chance that Charlotte and George are both Swifties and it was nice that he made a point of talking them to an event they would enjoy. That’s what I thought at last year’s Wimbledon too – it was clear that Charlotte is actually a tennis fan and a huge fan of Carlos Alcaraz. She was crossing her fingers for Alcaraz and really cheering for him. Bringing the kids to events THEY enjoy is preferable than the often-strained formal events they’ve had to attend in previous years. Still, William’s people can’t help but brief the media about how “taking the kids to a concert” makes him father of the year.
Prince William’s visit to the Taylor Swift concert with Prince George and Princess Charlotte was “a fantastic illustration of just what a brilliant dad William is,” according to one friend of William and Kate speaking to The Daily Beast.
The friend said: “It’s been an unbelievably difficult year for the entire family. The children have been amazing, and it was a fantastic illustration of just what a brilliant dad William is to see him there.”
The friend added that the adorable Father’s Day photograph of William and the children jumping off a dune in Norfolk taken by Kate was another sign of William’s devotion to his children. “It’s great to see this side of him publicly,” the friend said.
I was a kid when Princess Diana and Charles separated and then divorced, but I remember how Diana ran circles around Charles’s PR constantly, because she would do things like this. She would take Harry and William to amusement parks, concerts and movies. She was constantly emphasizing that she was “the cool mum,” the normal parent who wanted to expose the royal kids to a life outside of palace walls. She really was that person and it was authentic to her, but it was also a brilliant move in her divorce strategy. I’m not saying that history is repeating itself or anything – I think the current situation in the Wales family is a totally different beast – but I find it interesting that William is pulling from the past and effectively copykeening the mother he recently called paranoid.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instagram.