Princess Anne received an unusual surprise from Buckingham Palace just as she prepared to celebrate her 75th birthday. Known as the hardest-working member of the royal family, the Princess Royal is marking the occasion on Friday with a Palace event attended by representatives from her many charities.
However, hours before the milestone, her official page on the Royal Family website was abruptly taken down after a glaring mistake was spotted. The site had listed Anne as a “stepmother,” claiming she had two stepchildren named Tom and Amy through her marriage to Admiral Sir Tim Laurence. Social media users quickly circulated screenshots of the error before the page was removed.
The mistake puzzled royal watchers, as Laurence was never previously married. He and Anne wed in 1992 and have been together for 32 years. The Princess has two children from her first marriage, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, but no stepchildren.
Despite the mix-up, the Palace released an official portrait to mark Anne’s milestone birthday. True to her no-nonsense style, she has asked staff not to make a fuss over the celebration. As royal commentator Roya Nikkah once noted, Anne’s approach is simple: “I will do things for my birthdays that have a zero, but I won’t do things for my birthdays that have a five.”
