Sophie Winkleman reveals what marrying into the royal family is really like

Sophie Winkleman has opened up about her relationship with her in-laws – the royal family – and has revealed she adores ‘all of them.’

Peep Show actress Sophie, 44, married Lord Frederick Windsor – the son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent – in a lavish ceremony at Hampton Court Palace in September 2009.

Her husband’s father, 82, is the first cousin of the late Queen Elizabeth II and the first cousin once removed of King Charles III.

‘Family isn’t always brilliant but this lot are very sweet,’ Sophie said when she was asked about her relationship with the royal family on The Daily T podcast. 

Sophie, who’s styled as Lady Frederick Windsor, added: ‘I love all of them’.  

The half-sister of The Traitors presenter Claudia Winkleman, Sophie looked back to her big day, pointing out that many of the royals ‘didn’t go to the wedding.’

While Princess Eugenie and Lady Gabriella Windsor were in attendance, King Charles – who was the Prince of Wales at the time – and Queen Camilla were not present. 

Sophie explained: ‘I’ve got much more friendly with them as I’ve got to know them.’

Sophie pictured with her husband on her wedding day. The pair married in a lavish ceremony at Hampton Court Palace 

At Royal Ascot in 2023, she was pictured sharing a joke with King Charles, who she has since described as a ‘very dear friend’, and laughing with Queen Camilla.

And, in September of last year, she hinted at a close relationship with Kate, describing the Princess of Wales as ‘amazingly brave’ and as ‘beautiful as ever’ in the aftermath of her cancer battle. 

Sophie, who has just finished filming a BBC1 drama called Wild Cherry, also shared amusing details about her wedding with podcast host Camilla Tominey.

‘I don’t remember a single thing about it,’ Sophie admitted. ‘Nothing.’

Explaining that she hadn’t ‘thought about the wedding’ because she had been preoccupied with a new acting job in Los Angeles and the couple’s imminent move to the US, Sophie recalled that her hairstyle was horrible. 

‘Freddie still gets upset about it,’ the actress and Cambridge graduate joked. ‘It was just disgusting.’

In a previous interview with Tatler, Sophie elaborated: ‘I was so determined not to be a bridezilla, I didn’t even work out my hairstyle and I cannot tell you how disgusting it looked.

‘Coming up the aisle, the first thing I said when I saw Freddie was, “I’m so sorry about the hair.” He said, “Yes, what on earth have you done?”‘

While she ‘didn’t really mind’ that her mother-in-law, non-fiction author Princess Michael of Kent, 80, ‘did absolutely everything’ for the wedding, Sophie conceded that, had it been left to her, she would have chosen a different dress.

At Royal Ascot in 2023, Sophie was pictured sharing a joke with King Charles (pictured)

Lady Frederick Windsor was also seen laughing with Queen Camilla 

‘My mother-in-law chose my dress, which was very sweet and puffy, but I looked barking,’ Sophie laughed.

‘Now I look back on it and think I should have warn a simpler dress and I should have got my hair blow-dried by someone who had done it before,’ she added. 

Sophie equally opened up about her childhood in Primrose Hill ‘when it was still quite shabby’ and told how she was ‘irritatingly lucky’ to have ‘two very wonderful parents’ to whom she remains ‘far too close’. 

Reflecting on becoming a mother herself, she was self-deprecating, saying that she’s ‘doing it all – badly’. 

Sophie shares two daughters, Maud, 11, and Isabella, nine, with husband Frederick. 

Looking back to when the children were young, she was not embarrassed to admit that ‘it was astoundingly knackering.’  

‘I couldn’t believe that no one had told me,’ Sophie added. ‘I just didn’t understand how people had done this for thousands of years.’ 

And, in an admission that will resonate with mothers across the country, she added: ‘And, I still am tired. I don’t think I’ve not been tired since they were born and everyone else seems to be fine, so I’m definitely doing something wrong…’

Actress Sophie is pictured with Princess Anne’s daughter Zara Tindall (left) at the Platinum Jubilee in June 2022

Sophie explained that she and her husband don’t have someone who looks after Maud and Isabella regularly – just a couple of evenings a week. 

She added that they can’t find ‘anyone nice and normal we can afford’, a detail which may come as a surprise to fans of the actress and her financier husband.

‘Life is chaos, actually,’ she told podcast host Camilla. 

Yet, reflecting on her own young family, Sophie explained that her main concern has to do with her daughters’ – and other children’s – education, specifically, how it’s being derailed by the advent of ‘hugely unproven’ EdTech in schools. 

‘I’m beginning to worry that this country just doesn’t care about children,’ Sophie, who is patron of several children’s charities, said.

‘I’ve been banging on about screen damage to children for about three years now – and now there’s a spate of very intelligent articles about how screens are ruining adults’ cognitive health and suddenly everyone’s very interested.’

Sophie, who earlier this year spoke publicly about the ‘digital destruction of childhood’, told the podcast that she was annoyed when her daughters’ school gave them iPads without telling her. 

Offering an insight into her parenting style, she said: ‘I’m incredibly lazy in every other way apart from screen use.

Sophie, pictured with her husband Lord Frederick Windsor, described the royal family as ‘very sweet’

Sophie attended Kate Middleton’s Carol Concert alongside her daughter Maud,11, last Christmas 

‘They can do whatever they want. They don’t do cello and they don’t do Chinese. I don’t care. 

‘They can just do what they like but the screen thing I was quite fanatical about because it was so obvious during lockdown that it was such a terrible way to learn.

‘They are completely un-put-down-able – all these devices.’

While she acknowledged that ‘it’s too late’ to ban internet-enabled devices for under-16s, Sophie admitted that this kind of radical action was her utopia’. 

So concerned was Sophie that her daughter Maud would end up glued to a smartphone at 11 when she moved on to secondary school that she tried to get all the parents to agree not to give their offspring the devices. 

She revealed: ‘I had to become that maniac mother who got everyone together before year seven and said, “Can we maybe not do this?”

‘And, it was so anti my nature to do that – [to be] the sort of noisy, irritating goose at the school gates.’

The mother-of-two’s efforts were not wasted as she revealed that there’s ‘quite a big cohort’ in her daughter’s year seven form who don’t have phones. 

The Peep Show star arrived at the event with Lord Frederick Windsor and their children Maud (pictured centre left) and Isabella (pictured centre right)

‘They’re not isolated – and that’s really helpful,’ she added.   

Beyond the issue of smartphones, Sophie was dismayed by the decline of traditional forms of learning in schools, arguing that being on screens most of the day is stunting children’s development. 

‘It’s such a physically unhealthy way to learn – bad for eyesight, bad for their posture, bad for their sleep rhythms,’ she said. ‘It’s even bad for hormones and it’s terrible cognitively.’

Instead, she advocated the use of paper and pens and encouraged schools to get children to handwrite, adding that it ‘implants information so much more profoundly and long-lastingly into the brain than typing does.’

The actress argued that kids should be allowed to get bored – rather than being constantly stimulated by endless clips and games on screens – to help them develop their imagination. 

The 44-year-old actress is increasingly concerned about UK children’s education being derailed by the advent of EdTech

While the UK’s Online Safety Act has so far focused on the harmful material that children are exposed to, she suggested that ‘the decimation of children’s attention span’ is just as serious. 

She said: ‘I think we’ve gone way too far. I want parents to be confident enough in every kind of school to say [to teachers] “How is this better than a book, paper and pen?”‘

In another bold suggestion, Sophie added that the ‘NHS needs to come on board’. 

‘I think it needs to be a public health warning. Even 11-17-year-olds shouldn’t have more than 1-2 hours of screen time during the day,’ she added.

Yet, for all her passion, Sophie was not overly confident that changes are on the horizon.

Admitting that it’s ‘very hard’ to get other people to listen, she put the onus on those who are being affected every day.

‘I think the revolution has to come from all the young people,’ she concluded.