Members of the Royal Family often have untrue stories written about them, and with the advent of social media, it’s even harder to keep rumors in check. But back in 1957, one story about Prince Philip caused him to be “deeply hurt,” according to his longtime friend and one-time private secretary Mike Parker.
In Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, author Gyles Brandreth detailed the infidelity rumors that plagued Prince Philip throughout his lifetime, but particularly in the earlier days of his marriage to Queen Elizabeth. In 1957, Prince Philip, accompanied by Parker, embarked on a four-month long tour of the Commonwealth, and Brandreth wrote that the unusual length of his absence caused the rumor mill to go into overdrive.
The former private secretary told Brandreth that the solo tour—and his own very public divorce that year—caused Prince Philip to end up in a position where he was viewed as guilty by association. Parker noted that “innuendos about Prince Philip’s private life” quickly began circulating.
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Prince Philip (left) and his then-private secretary, Mike Parker, are pictured during their 1957 Commonwealth tour.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
As Brandreth wrote, “eventually the dam burst” and the Baltimore Sun ran a story titled Report Queen, Duke in Rift Over Party Girl. The newspaper piece alleged that Philip “was romantically involved with an unnamed woman whom he met on a regular basis in the West End apartment of a society photographer.”
“The Duke was incandescent,” Parker told Brandreth. “He was very, very angry. And deeply hurt. There was no truth in the story whatsoever.”
Queen Elizabeth “was equally dismayed,” per Brandreth, and took the unusual step of breaking her usual “never complain, never explain” rule. Buckingham Palace issued “an official and complete denial” on the story, per Brandreth, with the statement reading, “It is quite untrue that there is any rift between the Queen and the Duke.”
The late Queen and Prince Philip are pictured during a 1957 trip to Paris.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
As for Philip’s thoughts on the matter, Brandreth—who was a longtime friend of the late Duke of Edinburgh—wrote that he never would “have dared” to ask him about the infidelity rumors. However, Prince Philip “raised it himself and did so repeatedly.”
Brandreth wrote that Prince Philip sometimes laughed reports off, but at the end of the day, they did hurt him. The royal himself told the author that those types of stories “damage your reputation” and “chip away at it insidiously.”
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