Once the Prince and Princess of Wales made the commitment to Busy Thursdays, they could not waiver. Well, honestly, Princess Kate will use any excuse to only work one day a week, and that was on Wednesday for the enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Kate waved off this week’s Busy Thursday, while William put on some military drag and visited Bulford Camp in Wiltshire. He’s Colonel-in-Chief of the 1st Battalion Mercian Regiment, and they were deployed to Estonia last year as part of a NATO mission. So he was visiting with them for the first time since they returned back home. He also made a special point of doing a breakout talk session with enlisted women, which was almost definitely supposed to be the focus and headline of the visit: “Pro-Woman prince speaks with enlisted gals.” Unfortunately for all, William went off script when he was talking to the enlisted men, so now we’re talking about mustaches and awkwardness.
Prince William has joked he will shave off his designer beard and leave a moustache to join troops sporting fashionable facial hair. The Prince of Wales, who grew his own beard in the summer of 2024, admired the moustaches of the soldiers during a visit to the 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment at Bulford, Wiltshire. Stroking his beard, he said: “I might end up taking mine off and leaving a tash.”
Told by Lt Jack Austin, 26, that the craze had started when 1 Mercian was serving in Estonia last year, the Prince noted that the style is “creeping in now”. The British Army changed its rules to allow neatly-groomed facial hair on soldiers in March 2024.
During his visit to Bulford, the Prince was shown the latest training techniques, including an exercise using drones to help with building clearance, and met families.
One mum, 63-year-old Maxine Debonnaire, left the future King laughing after she jokingly told him she had barely seen her son since he returned from Estonia because he had been out on so many dates. “I think we’ll get on very well,” William told her, putting an arm around her as 26-year-old Lt Harris Debonnaire laughed along and confirmed he had in fact taken her out for Mother’s Day.
The Prince joined the officers, soldiers, and families of B Company in the Officers’ Mess to hear about their recent six-month deployment to Estonia on Operation Cabrit – the UK’s contribution to NATO’s Forward Land Forces in Estonia and Poland.
Whew, let’s get into it, shall we? I actually believe that William’s ugly beard is very unpopular among royalists and the royal press. They rarely bring it up, nor did they ever talk about how creepy it is that William wanted a beard just like his brother. One of my biggest peeves about William’s beard is that he keeps it hyper-groomed and yet it looks both prissy and dirty. Either grow out a full salt-and-pepper beard (like King Felipe) or don’t bother, you know? But if he tries a mustache, people will be really upset. He’ll look absolutely horrible, even worse than he looks now (lmao).
As for this: “…After she jokingly told him she had barely seen her son since he returned from Estonia because he had been out on so many dates. ‘I think we’ll get on very well,’ William told her, putting an arm around her…” What the f–k? At first, I was like “is he trying to say that he’s also going out on dates constantly?” But no, it’s like he’s hitting on the mom?? What a deeply awkward man.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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