Prince William: ‘I miss my grandmother’, there’s been so much ‘change’

Prince William said he does miss his grandmother as he opened up to Eugene Levy as part of his AppleTV documentary series

Three years after the death of the late Queen, her grandson Prince William has admitted that he still misses her.

He was reflecting on how Windsor means so much to him because of Queen Elizabeth’s connection to the castle and the town.

The Prince of Wales was speaking to the actor Eugene Levy and acknowledged that there has been “quite a lot of change” in his life since the death of his grandmother and grandfather, Prince Philip.

On his Apple TV series, The Reluctant Traveller, The Schitt’s Creek and American Pie actor asks the Prince: “Do you miss your grandmother?”

William replies: “I do actually, yeah, I do miss my grandmother, and my grandfather.”

The prince and Levy were chatting in the King’s Drawing Room inside Windsor Castle, which looks out over West London and Eton College, where William went to school in his teens.

For him, William explains, Windsor represents his grandmother: “You think about them not being here anymore and particularly being in Windsor, for me Windsor is her.”

And he knows that Queen Elizabeth would expect him to do a good job of being a tour guide.

“She loved it here; she spent most of her time here. Showing you around today is very much a case of trying to make sure, I’m doing it in the way she’d want you to see it.”

Part of the reason why the late Queen spent so much time in Windsor was the surrounding estate in which she could ride her horses.

William tells Levy: “She had her horses here as well, as you can imagine, it was a big deal for her, so that’s why she loved it here.”

The Apple TV series follows Levy to different countries to experience things he wants to tick off his ‘bucket list’.

His desire to do something about the Royal Family stems from his growing up in Canada, one of the Commonwealth Realms, where Queen Elizabeth, and now King Charles, remains the head of state.

Although the actor knew he was going to do some filming in Windsor Castle, the producers kept it a secret that he was getting a personal tour from Prince William.

Levy only found out when a letter was hand-delivered to him in his suite in The Goring Hotel in London – the same hotel that a certain Kate Middleton stayed in on the night before her wedding day.

“Why don’t you pop down to the Castle,” William writes in the note to his guest.

When Levy gets to the quadrangle at Windsor Castle, William arrives on a scooter to start the interview.

As he takes him around some of the rooms inside, the prince jokingly tells the actor, “we provide this service for everyone; we do personalised tours everywhere!”

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We know from previous publicity clips for the TV series that William describes 2024 as “the hardest year that I’ve ever had”.

He tells Levy this during a chat over a pint in a pub close to the castle.

A palace source describes the episodes as “a window into the Prince and his life in Windsor” and explains that William also talks about “fun, family and future”.

That means we may get an insight into the plans for the reign of King William V.

This is the Talking Royals – our weekly podcast about the royal family, with ITV News Royal Editor Chris Ship and Producer Lizzie Robinson