Mike Tindall Says ‘Uncut Version’ of Interview with Kate Middleton and Prince William ‘Would Have Blown the Public Away’

Mike, who is married to Princess Anne’s daughter Zara Tindall, hosted the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Princess Royal on his podcast last year

Mike Tindall wants to clear up a few misconceptions about what the royal family are really like behind closed doors.

The former England rugby standout and husband of Princess Anne’s daughter Zara Tindall has a book out Oct. 24, The Good, the Bad & the Rugby — Unleashed, which he wrote with Alex Payne and James Haskell, his podcast co-hosts. (Their show is similarly titled The Good, the Bad & the Rugby, minus the “unleashed.”) The podcast has hosted the Princess Royal, 74 (Mike’s mother-in-law) as well as Prince William and Kate Middleton, who taped an episode of the show in September 2023 at Windsor Castle, and the book highlights some of the show’s best interviews.

Writing specifically about the Prince and Princess of Wales, both 42, Mike wrote, “I think the podcast humanized them a little bit, and I kind of wish they’d let us put the uncut version out, because it would have blown the public away.”

Related: Kate Middleton and Prince William Make Surprise Appearance on Another Royal Family Member's Podcast!

“They came across as down-to-earth, fully engaged, funny and knowledgeable,” he wrote in the book, as excerpted in the Daily Mail. “It was a far more enlightening chat than I expected, not because I thought they’d be dull (I already knew that they weren’t)  but because I know how everything to do with the royal family is so carefully controlled.”

Mike, 46, is not a working member of the royal family, but he certainly knows what the family is like in private — and wrote, per the Daily Mail, that the experience of being royal is nothing like Downton Abbey.

They “are a very close family who loved each other dearly,” Mike said, and described relaxed picnic lunches and watching television with the late Queen Elizabeth — not “meals on long tables and everyone dressed in their finery every night.”

Related: Kate Middleton Plays Beer Pong! Mike Tindall Shares Princess' 'Uber Competitive' Side on Podcast

“Zara and I would often watch the racing with her [Queen Elizabeth] on TV, as I’m sure lots of people reading this have done with their Gran,” Mike said. “Lunches were also relaxed, especially up in Scotland, where lunch would often be heading out into the open space of the Scottish Highlands for a picnic.”

Balmoral, a beloved late summer getaway for the Queen and the rest of the royal family, is where Queen Elizabeth died on Sept. 8, 2022 at age 96.

“There’s a great picture of my daughter Mia sitting with the Duke of Edinburgh that captures exactly what those afternoons were like: members of a very close family who loved each other dearly spending precious time together.”

The photo shows Prince Philip, who died at 99 years old in April 2021, and Mia, now 10, sitting outside a log cabin in front of a wooden table, ready to enjoy a meal.

As for Philip’s wife of over 73 years, the late Queen Elizabeth, Mike wrote, “I’m sometimes asked if the Queen did informality like ‘normal’ people, and the answer to that is yes. Her life wasn’t like an episode of Downton Abbey.”

Mike explained in an episode of The Good, the Bad & the Rugby that he met the late monarch when he was just 13 years old, after she visited his school in Yorkshire in 1992 — a moment he does “remember very well.”

“I think I met her in biology,” he said — and might have even foretold his romantic future when doing so.

“Not entirely sure whether I said to her then that I would marry Zara,” Mike continued. “It might have come out my mouth. I’m not entirely sure.”

Mike and Zara ultimately met in 2003 during England’s World Cup-winning run in Australia and married in Scotland in July 2011, three months after William and Kate married at Westminster Abbey in London. A source speaking to the Times earlier this year described the parents of three as the “glue of their generation of royals, no matter how serious the occasion. They can help take the family’s mind off the gravity of what is going on. While some family members can be very ‘royal,’ Mike is just himself and is relaxed and playful.”

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Speaking of the gravity of difficult situations, after the late Queen died in September 2022, Mike said, “A 96-year-old lady, you know it’s going to happen, but you’re never ready for when it does." He continued, “I also have loads of regrets about not asking her so many more things … Having nervousness when you sit there, get that lucky seat of being sat next to her.”

He added, “It’s like the world has lost its grandmother in some way.”

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