Revealed: The cute nickname Princess Diana used for William – and the hilarious reason behind it, according to Harry
There is no doubt that Princess Diana loved her sons William and Harry very much.
And like any adoring mother, she came up with pet names for them – which the princes undoubtedly found terribly embarrassing.
In an interview with NBC Today ahead of the Concert for Diana at Wembley Stadium on July 1, 2007, journalist Matt Lauer asked William about his childhood nickname: Wombat.
'She used to call you "Wombat" which is cute... when you're seven,' the American news personality quipped.
'Yeah,' an 25-year-old William begrudgingly replied.
'I guess you don't want your mates in the pub going, "Hey Wombat, how are you?' Matt said.
'It kind of stuck with me,' William admitted, 'I can't get rid of it now.'
The prince went on to reveal that his mother first started referring to him as Wombat during a six-week royal tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1983.
Prior to the fundraiser, the brothers had taken part in an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC Today
At two years old, William was still at the crawling stage when he flew 10,000 miles across the world to participate in his first major overseas visit.
Malcolm Fraser, the Australian Prime Minister at the time, had written to the Prince and Princess of Wales saying that he appreciated the problems facing the young family and invited them to bring the prince along as well.
Fraser's considerate gesture enabled the family to lengthen the visit from a four-week trip to a six-week tour of both Australia and New Zealand.
'The first foreign trip we took William to was Australia and New Zealand,' Diana told her biographer Andrew Morton. 'That was for six weeks.
'That was great – we were a family unit and everything was fine.
'It was very tricky, mentally, for me, because the crowds were just something to be believed.
'My husband had never seen crowds like it and I sure as hell hadn't and everyone kept saying it will all quieten down when you've had your first baby, and it never quietened down, never.'
During the visit William stayed at Woomargama, a 4,000-yard sheep station in New South Wales, with his nanny Barbara Barnes and assorted security personnel.
While his parents could only be with him during the occasional break in an otherwise busy schedule, Diana was happy to know that William was under the same skies.
'The wombat, you know, that's the local animal,' William explained to Lauer decades later ahead of the Concert for Diana. 'So I just basically got called that.
'Not because I look like a wombat. Or maybe I do.'
'You know what it was?' said Harry, jumping at the chance to wind up his older brother. 'He was still crawling at six.'
'He was?' asked Matt.
'He still couldn't walk,' Harry insisted. 'He was still lazy.'
Playing along with the brotherly banter, Matt turned to William and said: 'Alright, get him back. What's his nickname?'
Without missing a beat, William replied: 'Oh, Ginger.
'Whatever. You can call him whatever you want,' William added.
'Most of them I can't call in front of here. You know, a bit rude. He's got plenty.'
'Ginger?' Matt asked Harry.
To which the 21-year-old prince replied: 'I know exactly. You're as surprised as I am. I don't think I'm ginger.'
'Apart from the fact you are,' William interrupted.
'Shall we not?' Harry said in an attempt to end the conversation. 'Let's not.'
But William is correct in saying that Harry has 'plenty' of nicknames.
In his bombshell memoir Spare, Harry writes that his father and brother refer to him as 'Harold', despite the Duke of Sussex being christened as Henry Charles Albert David.
Throughout her Netflix series, Meghan Markle refers to her doting husband as 'H' or 'Haz' while his friends have been known to call him 'Spike'.
And during the Channel 5 documentary, William & Harry: Princes at War?, royal expert Robert Jobson divulged that Diana used to refer to her youngest son as 'GKH'.
'She used to refer to Harry as GKH (Good King Harry) because she thought he'd probably be better equipped for the role in the future than William.'
The acronym supposedly came to be when a young William confided in his mother that he 'didn't want to be king', and Harry happily offered to take on the role and its responsibilities instead.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
28 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Jacinda Ardern reveals Queen Elizabeth II's parenting advice
Dame Jacinda Ardern was told by Queen Elizabeth II that she should 'just get on with it' after she sought advice on how to bring up a child in the public eye. The former prime minister of New Zealand, 44, has recalled her exchange with the late monarch at a Commonwealth summit in April 2018 while seven-months pregnant with her daughter, Neve Te Aroha. On the first day of the summit at Buckingham Palace, Dame Jacinda, who has advocated for New Zealand becoming a republic, was one of four leaders invited for a 20-minute private meeting with Queen Elizabeth II. In an extract of her new memoir A Different Kind of Power, published in The Guardian, she writes: 'She had, of course, raised children in the public eye, so in our private meeting I asked if she had any advice. 'You just get on with it,' she said simply. 'She sounded so matter of fact, just as my grandma Margaret might have.' She is only the second elected head of government in modern history to give birth while in office, after the late Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan. Dame Jacinda, wearing a mustard-coloured gown and a kākahu, a traditional Māori cloak woven from flax and covered with feathers, had given Queen Elizabeth II a framed image of the monarch during a royal tour to New Zealand in 1953, her head back in a full relaxed laugh. While waiting for the other 52 heads of state to assemble, the then prime minister said she had jokingly asked palace ushers whether the lines should be arranged 'boy, girl, boy, girl'. Only five of the leaders were women. She recalls: 'They looked at me for a moment, perhaps trying to decide whether to take the comment seriously, before moving on to the next leader. 'Of course I hadn't been serious'. Dame Jacinda resigned as leader of the Labour Party and prime minister in January 2023, telling the nation of five million people that she had 'no more left in the tank'. Her five-year tenure was marked by uncompromising and successful, if deeply unpopular, containment measures to stop the spread of Covid-19 during the pandemic. Dame Jacinda's compassionate response and swift reaction to the Christchurch terrorist attack, in which 51 Muslim worshippers were killed in March 2019, won her praise from even her staunchest opponents who had criticised her 'woke' attitude towards politics. In her memoir, she recalled how Donald Trump, the US president, had questioned her description at the time of the far-Right shooter as a 'terrorist'. She writes: 'We discussed what might happen to the terrorist. I used that word, 'terrorist', specifically and President Trump asked if we were calling the gunman that.' She said to him: 'Yes, this was a white man from Australia who deliberately targeted our Muslim community. We are calling him that.' Mr Trump did not respond, but asked if there was anything America could do. 'You can show sympathy and love for all Muslim communities,' she told him. Brenton Tarrant shot dead 51 people at two mosques and had broadcast his rampage over the internet. He was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the first time the maximum available sentence has been imposed in the country. In an accompanying interview with The Guardian, Dame Jacinda described Mr Trump as 'taller than I expected, his tan more pronounced'. Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, is 'quiet, often alone and almost expressionless', she said. When asked for her opinion of Boris Johnson, the former UK prime minister, Dame Jacinda is said to have rolled her eyes. She was awarded a damehood by the Prince of Wales last year, despite her being a staunch republican. Initially, she said she was 'incredibly humbled' but 'in two minds' about accepting the accolade, but did travel to Windsor Castle to collect the award. Dame Jacinda donned a traditional Maori cloak, often worn during special ceremonies, to pick up the award for leading New Zealand through the pandemic.
The Sun
28 minutes ago
- The Sun
90s soap star, 47 looks unrecognisable three decades years after TV fame and new career
A STAPLE of Aussies soaps looks completely different now after ditching her TV career. Tempany Deckert, played Selina Cook on Home and Away for four years until 1998. 3 After the actress moved on from Home and Away, she had some roles in other Aussie dramas such as, All Saints, and treaded the boards in theatre productions Down Under. She decided to follow in the footsteps of her Home and Away co-stars, Melissa George and Isla Fisher, by moving to Los Angeles to try her luck in Hollywood. While she has appeared in some films and TV shows over the years, Tempany has largely moved away from acting and her new career path couldn't any more different than her character Selina on the soap. She teaches writing courses at UCLA, works as a motivation speaker and has published a massive 18 children's books. Tempany based in Los Angeles for most of the year and in between sharpening young minds, she took time earlier this year to appear in season 4 of FOXTEL's prison drama Wentworth. She also made a surprise appearance in the Emmy-award winning Netflix series, Dahmer, where she played a cop working the desk at a police station in one episode of the limited series. Tempany opened up on quitting acting, saying it felt like she'd dodged a bullet. "For me, I always wanted to give a really good turn at my writing, and I wanted to have children," Deckert told 7News in Australia. "I knew that if I had children and I was working on sets, it was going to be very difficult. You are working many hours a day and you don't get to see them that much," she added. "If I had gotten a bunch of jobs in Hollywood, I probably would have stayed the course because I love acting – but I probably wouldn't have gotten married and had kids." The actress also runs writing courses for anyone who wants to follow in her footsteps, including one called Write a Novel, Change your Life. She recently promoted an upcoming course on Instagram where she looked unrecognisable from her days playing Selina on Home and Away. Wearing dark rimmed glasses and minimal make-up, Tempany promised some more courses were coming soon. Tempany is also married to voice actor Brian Donovan and they share two children. She became an American citizen in 2020, but said her dream would be to return to Australia. "I'm trying to convince my Australian agent to get me a great job in Australia where we can move back for six months to a year," Deckert said. "That's the dream – to convince the husband to move to Australia." 3
Daily Mail
33 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE It's a property trick surrounded by stigma. But this expert reveals why it's the 'best way' for young Aussies to buy their first home
A buyer's agent has revealed the clever way young Australians can get into the property market without having to save a cent for a deposit. Melbourne-based Ella Cas, 24, admitted her biggest mistake when buying her first home was not using a guarantor loan. A guarantor is someone, usually a close family member, who helps you secure a home loan by agreeing to use their property as security for your mortgage. Ms Cas, who works for Mecca Property Group, used the entirety of her $80,000 savings as a deposit to purchase her first property, but now advises her clients to consider guarantor loans instead. 'If I could do it again I would hold onto my cash,' she told Daily Mail Australia. 'That was my life savings and instead I could have used my mum's house for the guarantor loan and held onto the money to invest in shares or buy a second property.' Ms Cas said there was stigma around guarantor loans due to the risks involved. 'With your parents as guarantor their house is the security for the loan so there is some stigma around it as people think it's slightly unsafe due to that risk,' she said. 'However, in my opinion, it is simply the best way to get into the market as a young person and the best way to help your son or daughter to get into the market. 'I have clients that are in their twenties, they've got a full-time job, they're earning $100,000 and they have a borrowing capacity of $500,000, which is a good borrowing power. 'But, the majority of 25-year-olds, with the cost of living can't save a 20 per cent deposit. Who is saving that money these days? No one.' For a $500,000 property, a buyer would need $100,000 for a 20 per cent deposit. Ms Cas explained buyers who take out guarantor loans are able to refinance and release their parents as guarantors when the value of their property increases. She said it's 'very important' to choose a location with a strong rental yield and a focus on capital growth for a first time investor. The buyer's agent pointed out that although buyers don't need a deposit for a guarantor loan, they do need to be mindful of upfront costs such as stamp duty, and be sure they can service the loan. Although this is a popular option for younger buyers, Ms Cas said she has a client in his 50s who recently used his mum as a guarantor. The divorcee sold his properties and wanted to get back into the market while still holding onto his cash. 'If you do it right it's the best way to do it,' she said. Mortgage broker Bill Childs, 28, who now owns eight properties across two states, also wishes he had used a guarantor loan for his first property at the age of 21. 'When I started buying properties myself I saved for deposits and used equity on my own properties to buy more,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'But, if I look back my dad had property with equity so I could have used him as a guarantor and I wish I had because it would have helped me. A lot of people are worried some will say you've had a handout if you do it this way but people say that anyway if you're successful. 'Parents want to help their children into the property market and I do see parents give their children cash but that takes away from their retirement so this is a better option.' Mr Childs said using a guarantor loan is a great way to start a property portfolio as you can save a potential deposit for your second investment property. 'If you've borrowed the maximum that you can, make sure you're not in a situation where you're stressed on repayments, which are going to be higher because your loan is higher,' he warned. He also warned that buyers can get into 'trouble' if they buy in a 'risky market'. 'If you buy somewhere risky like a mining town and your property goes down in value, you're stuck and that's where it can go wrong,' he said.
