Diana's Chef Reveals the Bizarre Cake She Gave William on His 13th Birthday: 'He Went Bright Red'
Princess Diana, renowned for her elegance and kindness, also had a cheeky sense of humor, particularly when it came to her children. On Prince William’s 13th birthday, the Princess decided to prank her firstborn with a rather risque birthday cake that left him both embarrassed and amused. Diana obtained a 'b**b cake' to mark William's milestone, which led to the teenage boy turning the brightest shade of red.
Darren McGrady, who served as Diana’s personal chef for several years, recounted the memorable moment in an interview with HELLO!. “I came into work that morning and went down to the refrigerator, opened the door, and I was just confronted with the biggest pair of b**bs I’ve ever seen in my life,” McGrady recalled. He exclaimed, “The Princess had ordered a b**b cake for William’s 13th birthday."
William, who was undoubtedly caught off guard, reacted as any teenager might. “He just went bright red,” McGrady revealed. While the young Prince stood embarrassed by his mother's odd gesture, his younger brother, Prince Harry, was delighted by it. Harry allegedly enjoyed the cake so much that he immediately asked his mother for one of his own. As McGrady said, Diana always enjoyed pranking those around her in the 'nicest way.' He shared, “Whether it was telling a dirty, risqué joke — which usually got me.”
Similarly, Diana on one occasion invited a group of supermodels — Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington — over to Kensington Palace. When young William arrived home from school and saw the models sitting there, his reaction was a mix of surprise and embarrassment. “I was probably a 12 or 13-year-old boy who had posters of them on his wall. And I went bright red and didn’t know what to say and sort of fumbled,” William later recalled in a documentary. “I pretty much fell down the stairs on the way up. I was completely and utterly sort of awestruck. But that was a very funny memory.”
Her sense of humor didn’t stop with birthday cakes or surprise visits from supermodels. Diana had a particular fondness for buying her children joke presents. One Christmas, Diana allegedly bought Harry fake dog poo as a prank gift, former royal butler Paul Burrell once shared. Harry, inheriting his mother’s love for practical jokes, later planned to trick his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. According to royal author, Bryan Kozlowski, Harry recorded a voicemail message on the Queen's phone that said, “This is Liz! Sorry, I’m away from the throne. For a hotline to Philip, press one; for Charles, press two; for the corgis, press three.”
William, too, is known to have a wicked sense of humor. Claire Jones, the harpist who played at Harry's reception at Buckingham Palace, revealed that William teased his younger brother, saying, “Thank goodness Claire turned up to play the harp because otherwise, we’d have to get my brother to play it instead," as per Woman & Home.