Decades of British newspaper archival material suggest Prince Charles has been “infatuated” with Barbra Streisand for years and years, to the point where Princess Diana quipped that she “would not have been surprised if they had an affair.” Streisand, for her part, said in 1974, after her first meeting with Charles, who was then a strapping Royal Navy officer whose ship was docked in LA: “Who knows? If I’d been nicer to him, I might have been the first real Jewish princess.”
A new book titled “Game of Crowns,” by Christopher Andersen, which comes out on Tuesday this week (from Simon & Schuster), claims Prince Charles saw Streisand’s “Funny Girl” (1968) three times. He kept a framed photo of Streisand on the wall of his private room at Cambridge a
nd in Buckingham Palace. He told his personal valet that the celebrity he finds most appealing is Streisand: “I’m sure they thought I’d say Raquel Welch [but] Streisand is my only pinup.”
Back in 2014, Globe Magazine announced: “Charles & Streisand: Secret Romance Exposed! World Exclusive.” And back in 2006, the Daily Mail reported that “Prince Charles had fling with Streisand.”
The secret romance-fling apparently took place in 1994, two years after his highness had separated from Princess Diana and while he was involved with the Duchess of Cornwall Camilla Parker Bowles. The unauthorized biography “Barbra – The Way She Is,” also by Christopher Andersen, claims Charles had a private dinner with Streisand, and they were “very affectionate toward each other.” According to British author Harold Brooks-Baker, the two “had a secret rendezvous at his suite in the secluded Bel-Air Hotel,” which was marked on the royal agenda as a “private tea.”
And now, because a story like this must have a weird coincidence for the nice readers to share it on Facebook, how do you like these apples:
Andersen’s Streisand biography says the diva had a short romance with Dodi Fayed, the Arab playboy prince who was later killed in a car crash next to Princess Diana in Paris. Streisand, who was 15 years older than Fayed, met with him in the early 1980s after he had produced the film Chariots of Fire. They were driving in his car together, and Fayed, trying to lose the paparazzi, ordered his chauffeur to drive faster — except Streisand would have none of it, calling out, “Hey, let’s try not to get killed.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you survive for six decades in Hollywood.