The third season of The Traitors got off to a dramatic start, with Lord Ivar Mountbatten making his royal connections evident from the start. Named as Britain's first gay royal by several publications, Mountbatten is King Charles's second cousin and remains close with many Royal Family members. So it perhaps shouldn't come as a surprise that Lord Mountbatten name-dropped the Duke and Duchess of Sussex during his very first scene on The Traitors.
Explaining his heritage, the royal explained during the season 3 premiere, "I was born with a very nice last name. Mountbatten." He continued, "It is one of the Royal Family's surnames."
To ensure that viewers understood that he was fairly closely related to the monarch and his children, Lord Mountbatten said, "Harry and Meghan's children are called Mountbatten-Windsor. [King Charles III] is my second cousin."
Lord Mountbatten also addressed his status as the first publicly gay member of the British Royal Family. "I was married for 17 years to a woman [Penny Mountbatten] and I had three kids," the aristocrat explained on the season 3 premiere of The Traitors. "Then we parted company and I married a bloke [James Coyle]. Because I have a famous last name, it was all over the newspapers."
In an interview with Attitude, Lord Mountbatten, his ex-wife Penny, and his new husband, James Coyle, discussed the complexities of their relationship. Penny talked about meeting her ex's new husband for the first time, and said, "It wasn't until Ivar met James and he asked me to go and meet him that I realized that he'd met somebody significant." Penny continued, "And in fact, [James] and I really got on very well, because we're similar in certain ways. It was such a relief."
Lord Mountbatten's husband, Coyle, is an airline cabin services director, and the pair met during a skiing trip in Verbier, Switzerland. "I'd really fallen for him, absolutely, and he for me," Coyle told the outlet. "When the story broke in the press it was front page [news]...my phone just started going crazy: 'Queen's cousin Lord Ivar Mountbatten is gay.'"
Meanwhile, Lord Mountbatten admitted during the same interview, "I'm still not 100 percent comfortable being 'gay,' I guess." He continued, "Because I've lived my whole life in a heterosexual environment. And actually you often think—particularly my generation—you go to an event and you think oh, what are they thinking about you rocking up with a bloke."
