Queen Camilla shared the deeply personal reason why gender-based violence advocacy is such an important cause to her.
The royal, 78, opened up about her own past assault during a special edition of BBC Radio 4’s Today program, which aired on Wednesday, December 31.
“When I was a teenager, I was attacked on a train,” she recalled. “I’d sort of forgotten about it. But I remember at the time being so angry.”
Camilla explained that she was assaulted by “somebody I didn’t know,” adding, “I was reading my book, and this boy—man—attacked me, and I did fight back.”
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She continued: “I remember getting off the train and my mother looking at me and saying, ‘Why is your hair standing on end, and why is a button missing from your coat?’”
Camilla reflected on her emotions after the incident, noting, “I had been attacked, but I remember anger, and I was so furious about it, and it sort of lurked for many years.”
The queen—who has been a longtime advocate for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and abuse—shared her story with BBC racing commentator John Hunt, whose wife Carol and daughters Hannah and Louise were killed by Louise’s ex-boyfriend Kyle Clifford in a July 2024 crossbow and knife attack in England. (Clifford was sentenced to life in prison in March.)
Camilla recorded her conversation with John and his surviving daughter, Amy, at Clarence House as part of the UN International 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence.
“When the subject about domestic abuse came up, and suddenly you hear a story like John and Amy’s, it’s something that I feel very strongly about,” she said.
Although this is the first time Camilla has spoken publicly about her assault, the news first made headlines after Valentine Low included her experience in his book Power and the Palace, which came out in September. Boris Johnson’s former communications director Guto Harri claimed in the book that Camilla shared the story with the former London mayor during a 2008 meeting about Johnson’s plan to open three rape crisis centers in the city.
“She was on a train going to Paddington—she was about 16, 17—and some guy was moving his hand further and further …’ At that point Johnson had asked what happened next. She replied: ‘I did what my mother taught me to. I took off my shoe and whacked him in the nuts with the heel,’” Low wrote. “Harri said: ‘She was self-possessed enough when they arrived at Paddington to jump off the train, find a guy in uniform and say, ‘That man just attacked me,’ and he was arrested.’”
According to Harri, Camilla later “formally opened two out of three” of Johnson’s rape crisis centers.
“Nobody asked why the interest, why the commitment,” Harri said, per Low. “But that’s what it went back to.”
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available 24 hours a day through RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.
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