Our world used to have two queens, then Queen Elizabeth II died, and there was just the one: Queen Bey. Now, Elizabeth’s son, Charles, seems to be ready to defend the title.
The King visited the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Wednesday to honor the club’s charitable contributions to the community. Still, even as he connected with Gina Moffatt, a 48-year-old woman who was helped in the past by the King’s Trust, formerly the Prince’s Trust, he couldn’t escape the Beyoncé comparisons.
The singer will also be spending some time in the North London stadium when she travels to London in June for her Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit Tour in of her three-time Grammy winning country album. Demand for tickets has been so great, Beyoncé added two more dates to the now six-night residency. For Moffatt, however, it’s clear who the Head Monarch in Charge is around these parts.
“We’ve got Beyoncé coming, but you’re bigger than Beyoncé,” she told the king, per Mirror. Thankfully, Charles had the sagacity to brush off the arguably generous comment with nothing more than a chuckle. We agree that the king is a very prominent figure in history, not least because he inspired one of the greatest TV performances of all time by Josh O’Connor in Netflix’s The Crown. But could His Majesty sell out five consecutive concerts in the 62 thousand seater stadium? Because, according to Billboard, that’s exactly what Beyoncé did with the Renaissance World Tour two years ago — grossing $42.2 million — and she’s well on her way to doing the same this year. Pft, Bey has been a queen, but Charles certainly could not do “Heated,” much less “Spaghettii.”
In many ways, though, Charles is basically the fourth Destiny Child (Sorry, LaTavia and Luckett) with the way life keeps bringing him and Beyoncé together. The two have met on several occasions, including three times, once in 2001 and twice in 2003, when Beyoncé performed at concerts benefitting The Prince’s Trust — the very same organization Moffatt was representing at the Wednesday event. And if you find that serendipitous, wait until you hear this next factoid.
More shockingly, the two are actually related. According to the ancestry site Geni, as quoted by none other than the BBC, Charles’ mother Elizabeth was “Beyoncé’s stepfather’s wife’s first cousin’s mother’s ex-husband’s ex-wife’s first cousin’s wife’s aunt’s husband’s father’s wife’s nephew’s wife,” making them 25th cousins once removed. If you wanted further proof of how tiny the world actually is, it turns out its two queens share a family.
I don’t know about you, but having learned all of this — and as the lady who chatted with Charles yesterday was clearly alluding to — I now need him to put on his best cowboy hat and boots and head back to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium come June to show his cousin some love.
There are plenty of Cowboy Carter songs we’re sure the king would enjoy. There’s “16 Carriages” for all the gold-coated coaches sitting in his royal garage, “Blackbiird,” which Beyoncé adapts from the Beatles classic beloved across all of England, and, well, “Tyrant” and “Ameriican Requiem,” which are just great little nods to the United Kingdom’s past. But, truly, if we’ve learned anything from Beyoncé it’s that there’s nothing to be gained from pitting two queens against each other, so why should we be making comparisons?
Published: Feb 13, 2025 12:45 pm