Queen Camilla Opens Up About Being Assaulted as a Teen for the First Time: 'I Did Fight Back'
- - Queen Camilla Opens Up About Being Assaulted as a Teen for the First Time: 'I Did Fight Back'
Becca LongmireDecember 31, 2025 at 3:38 AM
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Queen Camilla -
Queen Camilla shared her experience of being indecently assaulted during an appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Today program on Wednesday, Dec. 31
The Queen said the incident happened when she was "attacked on a train" as a teenager and recalled "fighting back" against the man who had assaulted her
"I was so furious about it, and it sort of lurked for many years," Camilla said
Queen Camilla has opened up about her experience of being indecently assaulted when she was a teenager for the first time.
While speaking on a special edition of BBC Radio 4’s Today program, which aired on Wednesday, Dec. 31, the Queen, 78, shared her assault story during a discussion with BBC racing commentator John Hunt, whose wife Carol, 61, and daughters Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25, were killed in a crossbow and knife attack in England in July 2024.
Kyle Clifford, 26, Louise Hunt's ex-boyfriend, was sentenced to life in prison in March of this year following the attack.
Queen Camilla — who has long made supporting victims of rape, domestic violence and sexual abuse a key priority of her public work — invited John and his surviving daughter, Amy, to Clarence House as part of the UN International 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence to record the episode.
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Queen Camilla is pictured in 1989
Camilla recalled of her own assault, "When I was a teenager, I was attacked on a train. I'd sort of forgotten about it. But I remember at the time being so angry," according to a clip shared by the BBC.
"Somebody I didn't know," she continued. “I was reading my book, and this boy – man – attacked me, and I did fight back."
The Queen shared, “I remember getting off the train and my mother looking at me and saying, ‘Why is your hair standing on end, and why is a button missing from your coat?’ "
“I had been attacked but I remember anger, and I was so furious about it, and it sort of lurked for many years," she added.
Camilla went on, “When the subject about domestic abuse came up, and suddenly you hear a story like John and Amy’s, it’s something that I feel very strongly about.”
The special episode was guest edited by former U.K. Prime Minister, Baroness Theresa May, who has also long campaigned against domestic abuse.
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Queen Camilla
As previously reported by PEOPLE, the Queen's assault story was first shared in Valentine Low's book Power and the Palace, which was released in September of this year.
The book recounted the first few encounters between Camilla and then-London mayor Boris Johnson in 2008, per an excerpt previously published by The Times.
According to Guto Harri, the communications director who worked with Johnson, 61, when he was the newly elected mayor of London at the time, Camilla invited the politician to Clarence House for a first meeting.
Harri said that Camilla shared a deeply personal story from her teenage years during their meeting, related to Johnson's plan to open three rape crisis centers in London.
"[The] serious conversation they had was about her being the victim of an attempted sexual assault when she was a schoolgirl," Low wrote in the book.
The journalist continued, "She was on a train going to Paddington — she was about 16, 17 — and some guy was moving his hand further and further … 'At that point Johnson had asked what happened next. She replied: 'I did what my mother taught me to. I took off my shoe and whacked him in the nuts with the heel.' Harri said: 'She was self-possessed enough when they arrived at Paddington to jump off the train, find a guy in uniform and say, 'That man just attacked me', and he was arrested.' "
"The relevance of this conversation was that Johnson at the time wanted to open three rape crisis [centers]. There was already one in south London, and he wanted to open ones in east, west and north London,” Low wrote. “Harri said: 'I think she formally opened two out of three of them. Nobody asked why the interest, why the commitment. But that’s what it went back to.'"
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Through the years, Camilla has regularly voiced her support for victims of rape, domestic violence and sexual abuse.
It was revealed in March that Her Majesty had reached out to Gisèle Pelicot to commend her for her “extraordinary dignity and courage.”
The Queen was “tremendously affected” by last year’s rape trial in southern France, which ended with Pelicot’s husband, Dominique, being found guilty of repeatedly drugging and raping his wife of 50 years.
"As a long-term supporter of survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, the Queen wrote to Madame Pelicot privately,” a royal aide told Newsweek earlier this year. “It was very much her instigation and determination to write to express support from the highest level."
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
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