Tom Parker Bowles sets the record straight on Queen Camilla’s unsavoury reputation

Queen Camilla’s son, Tom Parker Bowles, has dismissed rumours regarding his mother’s drinking habits and chain-smoking.

Tom has given an unprecedented insight into the everyday lives of the royal couple in his new cookbook, Cooking and the Crown, which details the history of food within the royal family.

During an interview with The Times for his new book, the stepson of King Charles talked about the “inaccurate” perception that the Queen likes to drink gin and smoke and said:

“If anyone ever meets my mother, they always… I mean, a son would say this, but she’s someone I love going to have dinner with. And I go for a walk with her in Scotland. You’re always going to have your rows, differences of opinion. It would be very odd if we agreed [on] everything. Creepy. I certainly would annoy her sometimes.

“Oh, you know she has that reputation of drinking gin and smoking? Never drunk a glass of gin in her life. Doesn’t smoke.”

The 49-year-old said that the rumours likely came from the portrayal of Camilla in the Channel 4 sitcom The Windsors.

He said that he watched the show and loved Harry Enfield, who played King Charles, adding that Haydn Gwynne, who played Camilla was brilliant.

Tom said: “Yes. She was really brilliant. But my mother hardly drinks. Never seen her so much as tipsy.”

Camilla’s son replied to the Times’s Polly Vernon’s quote that the idea of the Queen “as a gin-swigging chain-smoker” is “Fine. But totally inaccurate”.