Winkleman, 44, wed Lord Frederick Windsor in 2009. Lord Frederick Windsor, is the son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. Prince Michael is a first cousin of the late Queen Elizabeth II, making Lord Frederick a second cousin to King Charles III and is currently 54th in the line of succession to the British throne
But, she recounts the rush of wedding bells and future demands didn’t leave much time for pre-wedding beauty preparations.
“It was such a blur because we had to move to Los Angeles the day after [the wedding], and I had to start a brand new job the day after that,” she recalled. “So we got married on Saturday and moved everything, our whole lives, out to America the day after. And I’d been so concentrating on the work that I hadn’t thought about the wedding.”
The outcome? A royal hair “don’t.” “Which meant that my hair was so disgusting, and Freddie still gets upset about it,” Winkleman admitted with characteristic humor. “It was just disgusting.”
Regarding her attire, Winkleman disclosed that her in-law, Princess Michael of Kent, took charge. “She sort of took it all over, and I actually didn’t mind at all. I thought, ‘Great, do everything,” she said. “I was concentrating on this acting job and saying goodbye to my darling granny, who wasn’t very well, and just doing other stuff. But now I look back on it and think I should have worn a simpler dress, and I should have got my hair blow-dried by someone who’d done it before.”In spite of the hair disaster, Winkleman speaks only praise of her royal in-laws. “Family isn’t always brilliant, but this lot are very sweet. I love all of them,” she shared.Now a mother of two daughters—Maud, age 11, and Isabella, age 8—Winkleman has turned her attention to contemporary parenting issues, such as the dangers of screen time. Working alongside social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and actor Hugh Grant, she’s become a vocal critic of over-use of screens in schools, going so far as to make a speech at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London.
Looking back on her own royal wedding day, Winkleman’s goofy crackle reminds us that even the most star-studded affairs can have their flawlessly imperfect moments. And sometimes, a bit of “disgusting” hair is just part of the story.
