The Queen Consort Camilla sits down with the UK Laureate

Tom Parker Bowles, who is due to appear on Saturday Kitchen Live today, told Good Morning Britain in 2019 that he and his younger sister are “not quite part of the Royal Family, to be honest”.

Queen Camilla had two children with her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, who she divorced in 1995 before tying the knot with the then Prince of Wales in 2005.

“My mother married into [the Royal Family]. She’s part of it. We’re the common children. We’re just on the side,” he explained.

That’s all about to change for Mr Parker Bowles and his sister, Laura Lopes, as the Coronation approaches where Camilla will too be crowned.

Here, Express.co.uk takes a closer look at Prince William and Prince Harry’s stepsiblings.

Tom Parker Bowles 

Born on December 18, 1974, to Camilla and her first husband, former army officer Andrew, Tom is one of King Charles’s 33 godchildren. The 48-year-old was raised in Wiltshire, as part of a “family who loved cooking and eating”.

He told the Telegraph in 2012: “I had a strong interest in food when I was very young, but I did not bake cakes with my mother or anything like that. My mother is a brilliant instinctive cook; she’s great at roasts, grills, cooking fresh vegetables and frying fish and so on, but she hates to do anything like baking that involves measuring out ingredients.”

Camilla was also easy going as a parent, always saying “don’t worry darling” if he got in trouble for bad reports or caught doing something he shouldn’t, he told Stellar magazine in 2017.

Much like the Prince of Wales and Duke of Sussex, he went to Eton. He then read English at Worcester College, Oxford. While at university, he was reportedly a member of the the Assassins and the Piers Gaveston Society and also met his future wife, Sara Buys.

After graduating, he dabbled in public relations before going into food writing as he “loved eating and could just about string a sentence together”.

But during his younger years, he made headlines — for all the wrong reasons. He continued: “I was naughty, partied a bit hard. When I was younger I got sacked all the time.”

When he was a 20-year-old undergraduate, he was cautioned for possession of cannabis and ecstasy when he and a friend were searched outside a nightclub in Greenwhich.

Just four years later, the then 24-year-old publicist, who was working for the PR firm Dennis Davidson, was caught in a media firestorm as it was reported that he was “high on coke” while at Cannes Film Festival.

At the time, it was feared he was a bad influence on Prince William, then 16, who had also been seen smoking cigarettes at Laura’s 21st birthday. He was reportedly reprimanded by his now stepfather who called him and said: “You’ve been a bloody fool. Pull yourself together.”

He then went on to pursue food writing, becoming Tatler’s food columnist in 2001. Now, he is known as an internationally renowned foowriter, having penned several books over the years, most recently his 2021 book Time for Tea, and won the 2010 Guild of Food Writers award. He has also presented a number of food shows and has made several appearances on the hit TV programme, MasterChef.

After five years of dating, he tied the knot with magazine editor and fashion writer Sara in 2005 where big names were among the guest list, including Mick Jagger, Hugh Grant and Joanna Lumley.

Two years later, they welcomed their first child Lola and then Freddy, 13, in 2010 who they brought up in their home in Shepherd’s Bush, London. Freddy, who is a Spurs supporter, is a Page of Honour at the Coronation.

After 12 years of marriage in 2018, the former MasterChef star split from Sara with the Sun reporting that the couple had been having problems “for some time”.

Tom later began dating journalist Alice Procope, the granddaughter of the 2nd Viscount Ingleby in 2019. But he was left “devastated” in March 2021 when the mother of three died just months after she was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 42. A source told the Daily Mail: “Tom had been blissfully happy with Alice and is devastated that life can be so cruel.”

In recent weeks, he has spoken strongly in support of his mother and the King. Speaking on the News Agents podcast about Prince Harry and the claims he made about Camilla in an interview with 60 Minutes, he said: “I don’t care what anyone says, this wasn’t any sort of end game. She married the person she loved and this is what happened.”

Both he and his younger sister Laura will not be given titles following the Coronation. “You’re not going to find us with great estates and being called the duke of whatever. No. That would be appalling,” he said.

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Laura Lopes 

Laura Lopes, nee Parker Bowles, was born on New Year’s Day in 1978. She too grew up in Wiltshire and later attended St Mary’s Shaftesbury boarding school as well as Heywood Preparatory School.

According to royal expert Kate Nicholl’s 2010 book, Harry and William, Laura and William did not get along, fighting over who was to blame for thier respective parents’ split.

She wrote: “William and Laura used to have terrible fights over who was to blame for their broken homes. William would blame Camilla for all the hurt she had caused his mother, which would send Laura into a rage. Laura was not having any of it. She would take a hard line and fire back at William: ‘Your father has ruined my life’.”

Much like Kate, Princess of Wales, she studied History of Art and Marketing at Oxford Brookes University, and later managed The Space Gallery in London. She was also at Tatler at the same time as her older brother, working as their motoring correspondent.

Now, Queen Camilla’s only daughter is a highly respected art curator and has kept a much lower profile than her older brother over the years, although her work has occasionally seen her appear on the red carpet.

In 2005, she co-founded Eleven, a fine art gallery in Belgravia, the area near Buckingham Palace that is one of the wealthiest districts in the world.

A year later, she married her boyfriend of eight years, then 29-year-old Calvin Klein model turned chartered accountant Harry Lopes, who is grandson to a baron and descendent of the Astor family.

At their big day in Wiltshire, the King was one of their 2,000 guest as well as Prince Harry, Prince William and his then-girlfriend, Kate Middleton.

She and Mr Lopes, who is now chief executive of Eden Renewables, now have three children together. Eliza, who was born in 2008, and twin boys, Gus and Louis, who came a year later. They will be Pages of Honour along with their cousin Freddy.

Tom Parker-Bowles appears on Saturday Kitchen Live today, which airs on BBC One at 10am.

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