Zara Tindall jokes about missing King Charles’ coronation, losing a shoe at the Queen’s vigil, and royal life being “like any other family” on her 44th birthday
As royal equestrian Zara Tindall celebrates her 44th birthday on Thursday, she gives a hilarious insight into her relationship with her former rugby player husband and life inside the royal family.
Revealing how she couldn’t see her uncle King Charles being crowned, she laughed when asked if she had watched the coronation from the cheap seats. Warm and funny, the successful Olympian also recalled a Cinderella moment at the late Queen’s funeral vigil, when her shoe fell off and she considered getting Prince Harry to retrieve it.
Insisting the royals function “like any other family,” the daughter of Anne, The Princess Royal and Captain Mark Phillips said of King Charles’ Westminster Abbey coronation in May 2023: “I did not see it actually, where I was sat. He was around the corner. I could not see.”
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Speaking at a £210-a-head charity dinner organised by The Sporting Club in London, she also confessed to an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction when she joined Queen Elizabeth’s other grandchildren for a vigil beside her coffin at Westminster Hall.
“Did you see my shoe fell off? The heels I was wearing for the vigil?” she asked guests.
“We were walking out, up the steps and I had tights on and my shoes were a little bit big. We were all walking up the steps and my shoe came off. William was in front of me and my brother was beside me.
“I went up the next step and I was like ‘Shall I pick it up…or shall I leave Harry to pick it up?’ So yeah, basically, I picked it up quick and I walked in. William came around the corner and said ‘What are you doing?’ I was like ‘I have lost my shoe!’”
And she blushed recalling the day in 2007 when she was awarded an MBE for her services to equestrianism – as she tried to remember which royal had presented it.
“Was it granny? I think it was. I can’t remember,’” she confessed . Please don’t tell anyone that I just said that…I will kill you.”
Mum to daughters Mia, 11, Lena, six, and son Lucas, four, Zara says seeing them become more like her is both good and bad.
“Obviously my personality is coming out in the children and there are some (characteristics) that you love and some that you don’t like. There is never a dull moment,” she said
One of her proudest moments in life was being awarded an Olympic silver medal, following her success at the London 2012 games, by her mum, Princess Anne – a fellow equestrian champion.
“My mum gave me the Olympic silver medal,” she said. “She was so proud and it was amazing to get it from her.
“It was incredible. I was like ‘do I kiss her or hug my mum?’
“There will always be a part of me that has slight regret in not getting a gold.
“That is how sporting people think. You don’t want to come second.”
Crediting her no-nonsense upbringing for her sporting success, she says having equestrian parents gave her a brilliant grounding.
“We grew up with horses and we were very lucky,” she said. “My dad was a coach for a long time but he was still in the sport. He is an incredible coach but he was also highly critical.
“There were very rare occasions when I got ‘that was good.’”
Her parents also had very different teaching techniques.
“They used to stand there when I was warming up. One would be on one side and one would be on the other,” said Zara.
“I used to go to one side and (mum) would say ‘don’t listen to your father’. She is very level headed and calm. He was like ‘you need to do more of this. You need to do more of that’. They had very different approaches.”
When it came to her sporting aspirations, Zara said of Princess Anne: “She was my biggest supporter.”
But she thinks sport has changed since her mum’s days in competition, adding: “There is more pressure now.”
Zara, crowned the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year in 2007, admitted competing as a royal attracted additional scrutiny,
She said: “No-one would believe me but there were a lot of disadvantages. But the amazing thing about sport is that it is a level playing field.
“You have to run out and you have to perform. If you want to get on team you have to win. You have to be consistent. You cant fake it.”
Laughing about how some un-named senior royals only turn up for headline grabbing equestrian events to see her win big, she continued: “They only ever come out for the big ones. Those glory hunters.”
Proudly claiming to have more medals than her husband-of-nearly 14 years, former England rugby player Mike Tindall, 46, Zara revealed: “We have a little bar in our house and they are hanging above all the alcohol.”
Mike was in the 2003 Rugby World Cup-winning England side, but Zara added: “The Rugby World Cup is once every four years. For us (in equestrianism) there is more to win. England (rugby team) have only won it once!”.
Still enjoying great laughs together, Zara first met Mike in Sydney, Australia, when he was in the winning team back in 2003, at the Manly Wharf Bar.
She said: “It is a long story. I was out with some mates. We went out to watch the Rugby World Cup. It was when we were young enough to run away from life.
“I went out for an all day lunch with some girlfriends. We went around the harbour and they were all very drunk and were like ‘England are staying in that hotel’.
“I walked past the restaurant and I saw Austin Healey. The girls went to Austin and dropped my name and told him where they were going to be. He came out for a drink with us and he brought Mike and Martin Corrigan.
“Mikey, I thought was a bit boring actually. When Austin left and I was told ‘He wants to call you after the final’. I was like ‘that is a bit keen. They have not even got through the semis yet.’”
“Anyway, he messaged me the whole time like ‘Come for a drink, come for a drink’. I was actually hanging out with some of the All Blacks.
“At 8am I walked into this bar and all the England guys were in there and Mike was walking out with this girl and he was like ‘come for a drink’. I was like ‘I have got to go home.’ To this day he said that he only went and raided her fridge!”
Marrying in Edinburgh in a quiet ceremony in July 2011, Zara recalled some of Mike’s memorable moments – like when he bought a racehorse for £12,000 after a few drinks.
She said: “We went to Cheltenham and it was sales night. Horses were coming in and you bid on them. He had a few beers.
“Most people when they buy a horse check out what it has done. It was the last lot of the night and Mikey put his hand up and that was it. He was left buying this horse. Annoyingly it did not backfire. The horse ended up winning the Welsh Grand National and it was third in the Grand National. It was so annoying.”
On another occasion, she ordered guards at St James’s Palace to wake Mike up in her mother’s royal apartment after he was late for a rugby event following a night on the town.
She confessed: “He overslept and was staying at St James’s Palace. Our PR girl was like ‘where is he?’ I rang the police at St James’s and said ‘can you wake Mike up?’ He was in my mum’s flat. They let themselves in. He says they came in with guns.”
Mike, whose nose was battered by rugby matches, has now had corrective surger.
Zara said: “It is fixed now. Better than it was.”
As well as sharing a wicked sense of humour, Zara and Mike are hard workers and hope their kids follow in their footsteps.
She said: “Hopefully, you can instil in them (our children) the values that you hold and from both of us what we have learned from our careers and our hard work, dedication, motivations, lessons and respect.
“I hope that our children will learn as well. I want to make sure especially how life is now, it is so easy to be distracted from that kind of thing, so we try and work every day to make sure they get the same values that we had.
“I would love them to be involved in sport as it makes you a rounded person. That is what I want for them. I think every child in the whole country should be able to be open and be able to try every sport, at least one time.”
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