The Princess of Wales’s opinion of Prince William's beard reportedly couldn't have been more different to Princess Charlotte's response.
The royals rarely switch up their looks too drastically and so whilst Prince William’s beard isn’t the most huge change it certainly attracted its fair share of attention when he debuted in August 2024. After having it for a month, the future King then shaved it off before re-growing his facial hair and he’s stuck with this new look ever since. Fans have had overwhelmingly positive reactions to Prince William’s beard, but at Adelaide Cottage his wife and daughter’s opinions reportedly varied massively.
Speaking on a special episode of 60 Minutes Australia this month, the Prince’s former communications secretary Jason Knauf recently expressed how he believes Kate feels about her husband’s choice. He claimed that if she wasn’t a fan, Prince William would shave it off again.
"I love it. I think it's great. But I've talked to him about it or tried to talk to him about it. He's like, 'It's here. I have a beard. No further conversation'," Jason alleged, as per Hello!, and when asked if Kate liked the facial hair he added, "If she didn't like it, it wouldn't be there. I could tell you that!"
If Jason’s remarks are correct, then it seems like Prince William reportedly has Kate’s seal of approval to put his clean shaven days behind him and he perhaps received this important opinion from the very start. However, their daughter Princess Charlotte wasn’t as keen to embrace her father’s new look - at least not for a while.
During his visit to South Africa for the 2025 Earthshot Prize Awards in November last year Prince William revealed in an interview that the nine-year-old royal burst into "floods of tears" after seeing his beard the first time he grew it.
"Well Charlotte didn't like it the first time. I got floods of tears, so I had to shave it off. And then I grew it back. I thought, hang on a second, and I convinced her it was going to be OK," the Prince of Wales explained, according to OK!.
Princess Charlotte’s instant reaction was so strong that her doting dad decided to return to his former clean shaven look for several months. Only after she was "convinced" about it and changed her opinion did Prince William grow his beard back and keep it for good. Now Princess Charlotte and her mother are aligned about the future King’s beard and as Prince William didn’t discuss his sons’ reaction they likely approve of it too.
It’s not entirely clear when Prince William grew it back, although he didn’t appear to have a beard in the video filmed by Will Warr that was released in September alongside Kate’s announcement that she’d "completed" cancer treatment. The still from the video they used as their Valentine’s Day photo this month didn’t show facial hair either. By November, though, the beard was fully back and so many people couldn’t be happier to see it.
Prince Harry has sported a beard himself for many years now and Kate’s brother James Middleton is also a big fan of beards. In 2020 he revealed on Instagram that he hadn’t shaved for 7 years and did so then, because he realised that his then-fiancée Alizée had never seen him without facial hair throughout their relationship.
