I married into the Windsors - the Royal Family's lives are total hell
The star married into the Royal Family back in 2009.
Sophie Winkleman has given a candid new interview and explained why the lives of members of the Royal Family are "total hell." Ever since Sophie married Prince and Princess Michael of Kent's son, Lord Frederick Windsor, in 2009, she has been styled as Lady Frederick Windsor and has since welcomed two daughters, Maud and Isabella.
Sophie is perhaps most recognisable for her acting work and has had roles in shows such as Two and a Half Men, Peep Show, and This is Going to Hurt. Over the years, she has been vocal with her praise for how she has been welcomed into the Firm.
Speaking in a new interview with The Times, Sophie said: “The more I get to know the Royal Family, the more I get that their lives are total hell and that level of unasked-for fame is a form of torture."
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She continued: “None of them went on Pop Idol or something to be famous. To have that sort of blinding spotlight in your face from when you’re born, not knowing quite whom you can trust, not knowing if someone’s going to betray you, people writing lies about you the whole time, is just brutal.
"I feel for them all. I don’t think a life with that much scrutiny and pressure is remotely healthy, but they have no choice.”
Sophie is the daughter of children's author Cindy Black and Barry Winkleman and is also the half-sister of TV presenter and Strictly Come Dancing host, Claudia Winkleman.
She has praised her experience of marrying into the Royal Family before. In another interview with The Times from 2020, she said: “I’ve been incredibly welcomed with open arms by all of them. I haven’t had a single negative experience."
She went on, referring to the late Queen Elizabeth II, "The Queen’s been wonderful, Prince Charles has been wonderful, Prince William’s been heaven.
"They’d never tell me off at all if I wanted to play some racy role. Everyone’s looked after me. Oh God, please don’t make me sound too gushing."
Despite her successful acting career, Lady Frederick Windsor has also spoken out on a number of causes which are dear to her heart. Sophie has often condemned the use of screens in classrooms and previously admitted to removing her two children from their school after they were handed iPads.
In an interview with the Telegraph earlier this year, she admitted that she is "beginning to worry that this country just doesn’t care about children."
She said: “It was so anti my nature to do that. [To be] the sort of noisy, irritating goose at the school gate,” she admits. “The screen thing I was quite fanatical about because it was so obvious during lockdown that it was such a terrible way to learn. They are completely un-put-down-able – all these devices.”
Sophie joined forces with fellow actor Hugh Grant and Jonathan Haidt, the American social psychologist and author of the 2024 book The Anxious Generation – to raise awareness.
Haidt believes smartphones should be banned for all children under 14, and under-16s should be banned from using social media. He has argued that screens have not only caused an “epidemic of mental illness” in children, but “rewired” their brains, resulting in “attention fragmentation”.
These worrying details are something Sophie agrees with. “I’m beginning to worry that this country just doesn’t care about children," she says. "I’ve been banging on about screen damage to children for about three years now – and now there’s a spate of very intelligent articles about how screens are ruining adults’ cognitive health and suddenly everyone’s very interested.”
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