'Red, White & Royal Blue': Hidden References to the Real Royal Family

Amazon’s romantic royal comedy Red, White & Royal Blue hit monitors on Friday, with the variation of the massively well-liked novel via American writer Casey McQuiston already discovering a fanbase on-line following its debut.

The film follows a fictionalized model of the British royal circle of relatives, whose Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) falls in love with Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of the U.S. president. The enemies-to-lovers narrative is a heartwarming story of affection overcoming adversity when it’s projected onto the sector degree.

Alternatively, for royal watchers, director Matthew Lopez’s a large number of references, tributes and Easter eggs against the genuine participants of the British monarchy would possibly deliver every other stage of passion to the mission.

Right here, Newsweek highlights a choice of Red, White & Royal Blue‘s best nods against the Space of Windsor and its crowd of well-known faces.

Wedding ceremony Cake Demolition

Within the opening scenes of Red, White & Royal Blue, the royal wedding ceremony of inheritor to the throne, Prince Philip (Thomas Flynn), and Princess Martha (Bridget Benstead) takes position at Buckingham Palace, London, with an outsized wedding ceremony cake towering over the reception.

In an offhand remark, Prince Henry says: “When the revolution occurs, it’s going to be as a result of this wedding ceremony! The cake on my own price £75,000. They nearly needed to smash the doorways right down to get it inside of.”

This can be a connection with the real-life drawback that took place at Buckingham Palace in London all the way through the marriage arrangements for Prince William and Kate Middleton’s reception in 2011.

Throughout a 2021 documentary for British TV, the cake clothier for the royal wedding ceremony, Fiona Cairns, recounted how a door on the palace needed to be taken off of its hinges to get the trolley wearing the cake thru to the state residences.

“When the queen got here to look us, the cake wasn’t totally completed,” Cairns stated. “I have in mind her pronouncing: ‘I pay attention that you have been dismantling my space?’

“I stated to her: ‘We needed to take a door down from the room underneath for the trolley to head thru with the cake,’ nevertheless it used to be all put again finally, so it used to be nice.”

Royal Wedding ceremony Tiara

Every other royal wedding ceremony nod is there within the film with the collection of tiara, the fictitious Princess Martha wore for her nuptials.

The diamond headdress, styled via gown clothier Keith Madden, used to be a duplicate of the art-deco diamond tiara worn via Meghan Markle on her 2018 wedding ceremony day.

Queen Mary’s bandeau tiara (as it’s formally identified) used to be made for Queen Elizabeth II’s grandmother in 1932 and used to be loaned via Elizabeth to Meghan for the duchess’ stroll down the aisle of St George’s Chapel, Berkshire, England, on Would possibly 19, 2018.

Public Grief

A extra touching similarity between the fictitious Prince Henry in Red, White and Royal Blue and Britain’s personal Prince Harry is the plot narrative that the royal misplaced a father or mother when younger. He used to be inspired to mourn publicly, regardless of no longer short of to.

Within the film, Henry apologizes to Alex for showing impolite at a gathering years prior to. “I am sorry I used to be a p**** to you. It is no excuse, however I used to be a p**** to everybody in the ones days,” he stated.

“My father had died a couple of months prior to, and the palace insisted on parading me round,” Henry added.

Lately, Prince Harry has spoken on plenty of events in regards to the affect that his mom, Princess Diana’s, dying in 1997 had on him when he used to be simply 12 years previous. He has additionally mentioned how the revel in of being requested to stroll in the back of his mom’s coffin in entrance of an international target audience and assembly participants of the weeping public affected him, maximum significantly in his just lately launched memoir, Spare.

‘I Am the Spare’

Harry’s memoir, and its provocative identify, is evoked in every other second of Red, White & Royal Blue, the place Prince Henry refers to himself as “the spare.”

Spare is a time period that has change into related to the monarchy and wider aristocracy, deriving from an conventional pronouncing: “Inheritor and a spare.”

This refers to a father or mother having two youngsters: one (the eldest) to inherit their circle of relatives identify and legacy, or, within the royals’ case, the crown; and the second one (youngest) to behave as a backup or spare, in case the rest must occur to the primary.

Harry gave his memoir the identify of Spare after noting that he had had the time period attributed to him all his lifestyles. “The Inheritor and the Spare—there used to be no judgment about it, but additionally no ambiguity,” he wrote.

“I used to be the shadow, the strengthen, the Plan B. I used to be introduced into the sector in case one thing took place to Willy [Prince William],” Harry wrote. “I used to be summoned to supply backup, distraction, diversion and, if essential, a spare section. Kidney, most likely. Blood transfusion. Speck of bone marrow. This used to be all made explicitly transparent to me from the beginning of lifestyles’s adventure and incessantly strengthened thereafter.”

Royal Type Nod

A stylistic Easter egg hidden via Red, White & Royal Blue‘s inventive workforce used to be an merchandise of gown, which has taken on mythical standing inside the royal style sphere because the must-have “princess get dressed.”

Designed via British style emblem, Beulah London, the “Ahana” mid-length get dressed with observation pleated main points, coated buttons and an identical coated belt has been worn via plenty of main international royals together with Kate, the Princess of Wales.

Kate first wore a faded purple model of the get dressed on the Wimbledon tennis championships in London in 2021, and he or she rewore it in July 2023 to wait the outlet of a brand new museum.

Within the film, the get dressed is worn via Prince Henry’s sister, Princess Beatrice (Ellie Bamber).

Tabloid Hacking

A pivotal second within the film revolves across the leaking of a chain of emails between Prince Henry and Alex Claremont-Diaz, which finally end up being printed via the tabloid media.

In a scene the place the inside track is damaged to Henry, Princess Beatrice says: “Your emails to Alex were hacked. They have been posted to Reddit [social media site] in a single day. The Replicate and The Solar ran them this morning.”

The topic of royals and hacking via the tabloid media were pulled into focal point in fresh months as Prince Harry has pursued plenty of proceedings in opposition to British tabloid publishers, together with homeowners of the Day by day Replicate and The Solar, over ancient allegations of illegal data amassing.

The prince was the primary senior royal to seem in a witness field for over 130 years in June. He supplied testimony attached together with his court cases referring to what he perceived as invasive experiences into his non-public lifestyles between the Nineties and 2010s.

Harry has said that conserving the media to account for his or her movements is a part of his lifestyles’s paintings and his criminal battles stay ongoing.

‘Prince of England’s Center’

In a scene of Red, White & Royal Blue after the characters of Prince Henry and Alex Claremont-Diaz’s courting has been publicly uncovered, the royal refers to a nickname he used to be given. It carries a robust hyperlink to 1 attributed to the past due Princess Diana.

“I think so misplaced at this time,” he says. “I imply, they used to name me the ‘Prince of England’s Center’, and now it looks like everybody hates me.”

The “Prince of England’s Center” reference may well be derived from Princess Diana’s posthumous moniker of “Queen of Hearts.”

The time period used to be first attached to the princess via herself, all the way through her bombshell 1995 TV interview with BBC’s Landscape display. In it, journalist Martin Bashir (who used to be later accused of getting deceived the princess in an try to safe the interview) requested if Diana believed she would ever be queen.

“No,” Diana stated. “No, I do not. I would love to be a queen of folks’s hearts… in folks’s hearts. However I do not see myself being queen of this nation.”

After her tragic dying on the age of 36 in 1997, plenty of posters and tributes left outdoor the royal palaces have been devoted to the “Queen of Hearts.”

Red, White & Royal Blue is to be had to circulation now on Amazon Top.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek’s royal reporter primarily based in London. You’ll be able to to find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and skim his tales on Newsweek’s The Royals Facebook page.

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