Prince William stumped by unsuspecting grandmother's awkward underwear question

27 January 2024 , 11:21

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William was stumped by this awkward moment (Image: Tim Graham Photo Library via Get)

After a lifetime of being in the spotlight, Prince William is a dab hand at making small talk with members of the public, at least most of the time. However, when he was a young man the royal found himself utterly stumped when a grandmother asked him a random question about underwear and was left pretty much speechless.

William admitted to the incident in an interview he gave to mark the end of his student life, as he was poised to graduate from St. Andrews, during which he discussed both his experiences at university and his hopes for the future.

Then aged 22, William explained in the interview that while he had been able to live a relatively normal life as a student - doing his own shopping, taking trips to the cinema and "just basically anything I want to [do] really" - which he described as "just brilliant."

However, he did admit that he sometimes still had to deal with "odd approaches" whilst he was out and about. "I've had the odd one or two. If you're implying that I've been proposed to in the street, then yes I have. And people sort of come up to me, Jehovah's Witnesses, I've had very devout Christians come up saying 'there's more to the word of God.'

"I've had lots of kids come up and ask for my autograph, I've had a grandmother stop me and ask me if I know a good place to buy underwear." When the interviewer probed William about whether or not he did know the best spot in town for undies, he admitted that this was the one question in a public encounter that had left him "stumped".

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The 'odd' encounter left him 'stumped' (Corbis via Getty Images)

"No, actually, I don't. I was a bit stuck by that one. I didn't mind being proposed to but that one really caught me out. I was a little bit stumped as to what to say on that one."

During the rest of the interview, William discussed his hopes of joining the Army and entering Sandhurst, where his younger brother Harry was already enrolled, and that above all he hoped to maintain control over the direction his future outside of university would take - as well as some of the private life he had managed to retain whilst studying.

William studied at the University of St. Andrews from 2001 until 2005, when he graduated with a 2:1 in Geography - although he initially began his studies reading History of Art.

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Emma Mackenzie