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Queen Camilla paid a visit to the set of an award-winning television show on Monday, Dec. 8, with a rare guest.
The Queen, 78, was joined by her daughter, Laura Lopes, 47, for the fun outing to the set of the Emmy and BAFTA-nominated Hulu series Rivals.
The show, which is set in the late 1980s, is currently filming its second season at TBY2 Studios in Bristol. Behind the scenes, the Queen met with David Tennant, who plays Tony Baddingham, the ruthless director of a local television network in a heated rivalry with Tory MP Rupert Campbell-Black, played by Alex Hassell.
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She also sat down for tea and cake with Tennant, Alex Hassell and other cast members like Bella Maclean, Nafessa Williams, Victoria Smurfitt and Oliver Chris, who spoke with her about the show’s upcoming second season, set to debut in 2026.
“It’s a little bit depressing being in a period drama where you remember the period,” Smurfitt joked with the Queen during their chat.
Rivals holds for special meaning for Camilla. Not only did she tell the cast that she binge-watched the first season during a bout with pneumonia and “felt much better afterwards,” according to The Telegraph, but she was also close friends with the late Dame Jilly Cooper, who wrote the novel of the same name that inspired the series.
“It’s so sad that she’s not here,” the Queen reportedly said during her visit. “She should be. I am so excited to be here. She would have loved it.”
Cooper died unexpectedly in October, after suffering a fall at her Gloucestershire home. The Queen paid tribute to her friend in a heartfelt message following the news of her death.
“Very few writers get to be a legend in their own lifetime, but Jilly was one, creating a whole new genre of literature and making it her own through a career that spanned over five decades,” she wrote.
“In person, she was a wonderfully witty and compassionate friend to me and so many,” the Queen continued. “I join my husband The King in sending our thoughts and sympathies to all her family. And may her hereafter be filled with impossibly handsome men and devoted dogs.”
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Cooper’s love for dogs carried over into Rivals. During her set visit, Queen Camilla also got to tour the show-within-a-show, Master Dog, and meet with some of the furry stars. She was also gifted a bag that read, “I ❤️ Jilly Cooper,” in honor of her late friend.
While Laura kept a low profile during her outing with her mother, the Queen did have an encounter with a member of another famous family.
Felicity Blunt, the sister of actress Emily Blunt and wife of actor Stanley Tucci, is one of Rivals’ executive producers. Behind the scenes, she showed the Queen the International Emmy that the show won for Best Drama Series.
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Laura is the younger of two children that Queen Camilla shares with her first husband, Andrew Parker-Bowles. She works as an art curator and rarely attends public events with the royal family.
She and husband Harry Lopes married in 2006 and have three children. Their daughter, Eliza, 17, was a bridesmaid at Prince William and Kate Middleton’s 2011 wedding, and their fraternal twin sons, Gus and Louis, 15, were pages of honor at their grandmother’s 2023 coronation.
