A hilarious story about Queen Elizabeth and a chance elevator mishap is making the rounds, courtesy of one beloved reality television star.
Reverend Richard Coles—a writer, radio presenter and priest who first rose to fame as part of the 1980s band the Communards—is the latest contestant to join the hit British reality TV series I'm A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! . The Survivor-like show brings various British celebs together, where they're forced to face a variety of challenges that help them receive supplies and avoid being voted out of the competition.
In a clip of the show posted by the show's official Instagram account, Coles shares a story he heard about the late Queen Elizabeth that, to this day, brings him a laugh.
"I heard a great story about the late Queen. It was a State Opening of Parliament so she got all robed up and everything to go into the chamber," he told two of his fellow contestants as they sat around a makeshift fire in the middle of the jungle. "But normally there’s a flight of stairs you have to go up to get there from the Robing Room and she couldn’t manage that so they thought they would put her in a lift."
"So there she was with Prince Philip and they were all absolutely done up—crowns, gowns, everything," he continued. "And the Sergeant at Arms, whoever it was, took them into the lift, but he pressed the wrong button. Instead of going up to the Lords it went down to service sector.
"And the door opened and there was a woman, a cleaner there, with a trolley. She didn’t look up, she just went, 'Budge up!’ and walked in and pushed the Queen and Prince Philip to the back of the lift! And then she looked up and went, 'F****** hell.'"
All three contestants started laughing, before Coles could finish with arguably the best part of the story.
"And the Queen invited her to tea at Buckingham Palace," he concluded, much to the amusement of his fellow cast members.
Of course, there are a slew of hilarious stories about the late Queen, who passed away in on Sept. 8, 2022 at the age of 96.
As former royal protection officer Richard Griffin once recalled during an appearance on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive show, the Queen joked that she had never met herself after running into a pair of oblivious American tourists during a walk near Balmoral Castle.
"And you could see him thinking, 'if you've been coming up here for over 80 years, you must have met the Queen,'" Griffin recalled. "And as quick as a flash, she says, 'Well, I haven't, but Dick here meets her regularly.'"
