Even King Charles has a habit that gets on his wife’s nerves.
Queen Camilla has offered a surprisingly candid glimpse into her private life with the monarch, revealing that one of his favorite evening pastimes can leave her struggling to concentrate.
The 79-year-old Queen opened up about the couple’s unusual bedtime-adjacent routine in the BBC documentary The Book That Changed My Life, which aired October 14.
While their lives are filled with royal engagements, official ceremonies and public appearances, Camilla revealed that she and Charles, 77, enjoy a much simpler tradition behind closed doors.
Before dinner, the couple likes to sit together and read.
But their peaceful evenings don’t always stay peaceful.
According to Camilla, Charles has a particular weakness for biographies and the humorous novels of British author P.G. Wodehouse. And when something catches the King’s attention, he apparently has no trouble letting the entire room know.
The Queen admitted that her husband sometimes erupts into such loud laughter that it completely disrupts her reading.
“I occasionally, when I’m deep in a book, hear him roaring with laughter about something,” Camilla revealed.
“It’s very off-putting,” she added, explaining that the interruptions can make it difficult to return to her story.
Camilla also acknowledged that she occasionally becomes so emotionally involved in her own books that she starts crying.
Despite the occasional distractions, the Queen made it clear that she cherishes the time they spend reading together, describing it as a lovely, quiet part of their day.
The lighthearted confession offered a rare look at the everyday relationship between Charles and Camilla, who celebrated their 21st wedding anniversary in April.
The documentary also revealed just how deeply reading has shaped Camilla’s life.
The Queen recalled growing up in a household where books were encouraged from an early age. Her father, Major Bruce Shand, relied on reading to help him endure captivity as a prisoner of war during World War II.
Camilla, who left school at 16, credited literature with providing much of her education.
“Reading has been most of my education,” she explained.
She also made a surprising confession about her teenage years, recalling how she secretly read D.H. Lawrence’s once-controversial novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover by flashlight.
The forbidden nature of the book only made her more determined to read it.
Her lifelong passion eventually inspired her to launch a virtual book club in 2021, which grew into The Queen’s Reading Room, a charity dedicated to encouraging people to discover the benefits of reading.
The organization now reaches approximately 12 million people around the world annually.
Research promoted by the charity has suggested that even five minutes of reading fiction can significantly reduce stress, with one study reporting a reduction of nearly 20 percent.
In the documentary, Camilla also met people whose lives were transformed by books, including a former prisoner who discovered reading behind bars and a Scottish business owner who found comfort in literature after losing her husband.
For the Queen, books remain an essential source of comfort, knowledge and entertainment.
And judging by her husband’s enthusiastic reactions to his favorite authors, King Charles apparently agrees.
Even if his booming laughter occasionally interrupts the peace.
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