Prince Charles & Camilla’s Horny Phone Conversation Will Forever Live In My Brain Rent-Free

Things That Live In My Brain Rent-Free is a column where writers discuss the things they’ll never move past, and will happily bring up at parties and dinner gatherings for the rest of their lives. 

When I was younger, I used to devour magazines like Woman’s Day, New Idea, Women’s Weekly, Who – anything semi-gossipy that I could get my grubby little hands on when I stayed over at my Nonna’s house.

From the early ’00s, if anyone was looking for me, they’d often find me curled up on a lounge, head buried within the pages of these magazines. I had a front-row seat to the Ben Affleck and J-Lo show, I remember vividly devouring the issues when Bec and Lleyton Hewitt were married, and oh boy, the scandal that was Jennifer Aniston being pregnant approximately 987 times while still pining after Brad Pitt – well, that’s just forever seared in my memory.

Now, this isn’t a hard, statistical fact, but I daresay that the majority of these mags I read had weekly reports on the Royal family. From persistent rumours about Diana (yes, continuously after her death), to Harry being off the rails, and Fergie under fire for simply breathing, the Royals were more scandalous than anything Britney had allegedly done that week.

After Meghan and Harry’s explosive interview with Oprah aired earlier this week, one thing resurfaced on the internet that I had simply forgotten about. In fact, the piece of content in question was something I vividly remember reading as a child, knowing something about it seemed wrong, and then suppressing it for the rest of my childhood life.

I am, of course, talking about Tampongate.

What was Tampongate?!

TL;DR –  The year was 1993, and Prince Charles had recently separated from Diana. Not long after the separation was announced, a horny leaked phone recording between Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles created quite the royal scandal.

The phone call was from 1989, when Charles was still married to Diana, and Camilla was still married to Andrew Parker Bowles. In the call, Charles and Camilla tell one another how much they love each other while also fantasising about him, uh, being a tampon, so he could be in her pants all the time.

Normal stuff.

Since Harry and Meghan’s interview, the transcript of Tampongate has once again been circulating online, and many people are just reading the horny interaction for the first time.

Now, we don’t want to kink-shame, but the chat wasn’t great. It wasn’t sexy. Charles and Camilla’s dirty talk was about as lukewarm as a day-old sausage roll that’s been sitting untouched in the 7-11 warmer.

Charles and Camilla’s horny tampon talk emotionally scarred me in my youth:

Here’s the thing. Upon reading the excerpts circulating online, a buried, hidden memory started to rumble to the surface in my brain. An uncomfortable feeling of familiarity washed over me.

I knew this information.

I had come across these words in my life before.

I had read this before.

I had a vivid flashback to being curled up on a reclining armchair in my Nonna’s loungeroom, full of fish and chips, thumbing the pages of New Idea or Woman’s Day and reading the transcript of Tampongate – for whatever reason it had resurfaced again in the ’00s for me to read it in all its glossy terror.

I was probably somewhere between the ages of 10 and 12 when I first read it. I was old enough to know something didn’t seem right here, but young enough to bury it in the back of my mind and never think about it again.

That’s until earlier this week.

Now I’m 30, and Tampongate has been forcefully pushed through the front of my brain, and it has consumed my thoughts for the last 48 hours. I will now never forget it. I will never naively flick the page to a different story. Tampongate is destined to live in my brain forever, rent-free.

Strolling through the supermarket will never be the same. As I reach for a box of tampons from now on, all I’ll see is Prince Charles in my minds-eye. As I glance at a sanitary bin, I’ll wonder if he’ll pop out, living his best tampon life. Weren’t periods already bad enough? Well, they just got worse.

OK, OK, can we see the Tampongate transcript then?

Fine, go ahead. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

You can read the full transcript here.

Sorry, uh, did he say “press the tit”?

I can’t delve into this. I’ve already emergency called my therapist four times.

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Do you have something that lives in your brain rent-free? We’re looking to commission freelancers for this series, so get in touch at [email protected].