The topless model and questions about Wills’ ski weekend
SoMe blokes have it all. every creature comfort the world has to offer, beautiful children and a gorgeous wife giving him a loving kiss before he waves goodbye and sets off… for a lads’ long weekend abroad.
Whether or not that was quite the scene as Prince William left home on Thursday afternoon and took off for the Swiss ski playground of Verbier with three friends, who would deny he’s a lucky man, and Kate a very understanding wife?
of course, if he hadn’t been the heirin-line to the throne, no one would have bothered to photograph him high-fiving a lissom sometime topless model (she wasn’t, ahem, topless at the time) as the quartet interrupted their energetic skiing for lunch lubricated with wine, beer and Jagerbombs – the fashionable liqueur Jagermeister taken with an energy drink mixer.
Nor would anyone later have taken particular notice of him ‘dad dancing’ in a nightclub apart from the fact that he was whirling round, arms aloft and clearly very happy at the Farinet club, a popular apres-ski hangout.
If only William had paused to think a little more deeply about what he was doing, he might not have stepped into yet another pleasure-versus-duty minefield, leaving him being accused of an error of judgment.
But then, William is described by a close friend as ‘headstrong and on the snappy side, with a short fuse’. In other words, he doesn’t take advice all that well, especially when it clashes with his private life.
It meant that while every other available senior member of the royal family accompanied the Queen and Prince Philip to the annual Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey on Monday, William was still in Verbier, squeezing in a final few runs before the flight home.
How ironic that William’s uncle, Prince Andrew, who shares a £13million chalet with ex-wife Fergie in the glossy resort, flew home in time for the service.
William and his pals didn’t stay at Uncle Andrew’s chalet, but at the exclusive Cordee Des Alpes, where they are understood to have had use of the Cordelette penthouse, a five-bedroom apartment that costs around £3,000 a night. Three of the rooms have a queen-size bed with luxury goose-down duvets. The apartment also has southfacing balconies, an open fire and a home cinema. The quartet used a hotel shuttle bus to and from the ski slopes.
So there they were, the weekending foursome, skiing hard every day and having a good time. All had wives at home, except for Thomas van Straubenzee – godfather to Princess Charlotte – who was at Ludgrove prep school with William and is now a chartered surveyor.
He and his wife Lady Melissa
Percy, daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, were divorced last year after barely three years of marriage.
There was James Meade, son of the late triple Olympic equestrian gold-medallist Richard Meade, whose wife Lady Laura is the daughter of the Earl of Romney.
Finally – and inevitably, really – there was Guy Pelly, perky, Stowe-educated nightclub entrepreneur, long-time jester-in-chief to William, and the figure wrongly blamed for introducing the teenage Prince Harry to drugs and underage drinking. His American wife of three years is Elizabeth Wilson, heiress to the Holiday Inn hotel fortune and former carnival queen in Memphis, Tennessee.
With this quartet gathered together, it was hardly going to be a quiet weekend. They all ski well, but they apres-ski well, too. Friday was a day for the challenging runs at the upmarket resort, but by Saturday they were moving into party mode.
That evening they wined and dined at La Channe, a rustic, pine-clad restaurant with cow bells hanging from the ceiling. Prices there are less rustic – £48 for a beef fondue and £32 for a simple chicken salad.
From there it was straight on to the nightclub at the five-star Le Farinet hotel, with its drinks menu of more than 30 signature cocktails. This is where they are understood to have met up with Australian glamour girl Sophie Taylor, 24, who last year posed for a series of racy topless photographs in Bali but is currently working through the ski season in Verbier as a waitress.
A photographer named Glen Krohn says: ‘Sophie is a real, down to earth, straight-talking girl from Oz. She will be very comfortable in the company of the royals.’ He added that she was ‘very confident’ in front of the camera and had ‘no inhibitions about posing topless’.
HER boyfriend Aaron Goodfellow, a former barman and now a chef, who grew up in Eastleigh, Hampshire, and has dual British and Australian citizenship, also met the prince.
On Sunday, between zipping down the slopes, William and his three friends paused for a leisurely lunch at the mountainside restaurant La Vache, one of whose financial backers is the pop star James Blunt. They were joined there by off-duty Sophie and another blonde, Rosie Peate, 30, from Blackpool, who is also working the ski season as a waitress at Le Farinet night club.
A beautician and Liverpool football club supporter, Rosie is engaged to Aly Bootle, co-owner of the Relish Restaurant and bar in San Antonio, Ibiza, where she works every summer. William, in a bobble hat and sunglasses, was clearly enjoying their company.
At one stage he and Sophie did an exuberant high-five over the bottles and glasses on the table.
When pictures of the high-five reached Australia, Sophie’s startled mother Joni was quick to point out that her daughter was a
‘girl of integrity’, telling an Australian newspaper: ‘Sophie said they met and had a few drinks. She said he [William] was lovely and a down-to-earth person.’
As for Aaron – who used to be an events manager at the May Fair hotel in London – anxious that the world might misconstrue his partner’s boisterous behaviour with the prince, he tweeted: ‘Sophie is my partner… I enjoyed Wills’ company and he was very down to earth. Great guy!’
But the fun had only just started, and clearly William was saving something of himself for the evening ahead. That was when he and his friends could be found back at the Farinet.
And as the heavy beat sound of the indie-rock covers group Hussy Band filled the club, so William moved towards the dance floor. Until that moment, he had been standing at the bar with his friends but now William was in a little world of his own as, with arms spread out and raised rave-style, he twirled around the floor to the music, all by himself.
He saved his best moves for the hip-hop hit I Got 5 On It, which has references to taking marijuana. It was around 1am when the well-refreshed party left.
To the delight of the hotel, William had done nothing to mask his identity. For their part, the Hussy Band were thrilled.
They later tweeted: ‘Prince William made an appearance! Rock on Prince Royalty.’ By the time William, with his friends, arrived home on Monday evening, the Westminster Abbey service was long finished. But the repercussion of his non-attendance was about to begin.
For her part, Kate had been happy for William to have a long weekend away with his friends. But the timing couldn’t have been worse. Any other weekend would have been better, as this one spilled over into Monday, and that Commonwealth service, which this year had such added significance as the Prime Minister prepares to press the Brexit button.
The Queen is known to take a soft line with William over his royal duties, on account of her own loss of freedom at the age of 25 when her father George VI died.
But William has carried out royal duties on only 13 days so far this year. The Queen, who will be 91 next month, has carried out official engagements on 24 days.
The fact that Prince Charles broadly agrees with the Queen that William should retain his freedom as long as possible has, in the view of many courtiers, led the prince into making repeated errors of judgment. While he has been an air ambulance helicopter pilot in East Anglia it has permitted him, Kate and their children George and Charlotte to live as a family in Norfolk relatively undisturbed.
But other lapses in judgment have allowed him to say one thing and do another. Take his intervention on curbing illegal poaching of wildlife.
Two years ago he delivered an impassioned plea on the subject, only for it to rebound in his face when it was disclosed he and Harry had just returned from a trip to Spain, shooting deer and wild boar.
No doubt this time next year he, plus Kate, will be taking their seats in the Abbey for the 2018 Commonwealth Service. He has another few weeks to serve in the air ambulance helicopter before becoming a full-time working royal.
Last night, he was back on flying duty, those wild times at the Farinet club no more than a fond memory.