Royal biographer
Penny Junor noted that the monarchy has historically cultivated an idealised domestic image, stating: "Right back to the Queen Mother, and the two little princesses, the whole idea was that the monarchy was a model family".
In 1992, a series of events undermined this image: the Princess Royal and Captain
Mark Phillips divorced; the Prince and
Princess of Wales separated; a biography detailing the Princess's
bulimia and
self-harming was published;
private telephone conversations involving the Princess of Wales were leaked;
intimate telephone conversations between the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles also surfaced; the Duke and Duchess of York separated; and photographs of the topless Duchess having her toes sucked by another man appeared in tabloids. Historian Robert Lacey said that these developments "put paid to any claim to being a model of family life". The scandals contributed to public reluctance to fund repairs to
Windsor Castle following the
1992 fire. A further "
PR disaster" was the royal family's initial response to the
death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. In the 1990s, the royal family established the Way Ahead Group, comprising senior family members and advisers and chaired by Elizabeth II, in an effort to adapt to public expectations. The
wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in April 2011 generated a "tide of goodwill", and by Elizabeth II's
Diamond Jubilee in 2012 the family's public image had recovered. The role and public relations of the extended royal family again came under scrutiny due to the Duke of York's association with convicted
sex offenders
Jeffrey Epstein and
Ghislaine Maxwell,
allegations of sexual abuse, his widely criticised
2019 interview on the subject and the subsequent
2021 lawsuit. In June 2019, the family, several of whose members advocate for environmental causes, faced criticism after reports that its carbon footprint from business travel had "doubled". In a
2021 interview, the Duchess of Sussex, who is of
biracial heritage, relayed second-hand that there had been "concerns and conversations" within the royal family about the
skin colour of their son,
Archie, while the Duke of Sussex stated it was a single instance. The Duke of Cambridge said the royal family were "very much not a racist family". In June 2021, documents revealed that "coloured immigrants or foreigners" had been barred by Elizabeth II's chief financial manager in the 1960s from working as
clerks, prompting black studies professor
Kehinde Andrews to argue that "the royal family has a terrible record on race". In response, the palace stated that it complied "in principle and in practice" with anti-discrimination legislation, and that second-hand accounts of "conversations from over 50 years ago should not be used to draw or infer conclusions about modern-day events or operations." During the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's 2022 Caribbean tour, undertaken as part of the
Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations, the family encountered criticism from political figures and the press over historical links to
colonialism and the
Atlantic slave trade through the
Royal African Company.
Reparations for slavery emerged as a major demand of protesters during the couple's visit. Both the then Prince of Wales and Duke of Cambridge have condemned slavery in speeches, and Charles has described acknowledging the wrongs of the past as essential for Commonwealth countries to realise their potential. In a
2023 interview, the Duke of Sussex was asked whether he and his wife had accused members of his family of racism during their 2021 interview; he replied, "No. The British press said that, right? Did Meghan ever mention 'they're racists'?" Historically, the royal family and the
media have benefited from each other: the family used the press to communicate with the public, while the media used the family to attract readers and viewers. With the
advent of television, however, the media became less deferential to the royal family's privacy. A 2021
BBC documentary suggested that briefings and counter-briefings between
royal households contributed to negative coverage of various family members. Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, and Kensington Palace, representing the Queen, the then Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Cambridge respectively, described these claims as "overblown and unfounded claims". ==Funding==