So close but so far! Mike Tindall was honored to attend King Charles III’s coronation with wife Zara Tindall — but he has one major complaint about the ceremony.
“You’re in the hottest spot, but it was all happening just around the corner of wall that you can’t see!” Princess Anne’s son-in-law, 44, said during the May 18 episode of his “The Good, the Bad & the Rugby” podcast.
The former professional rugby player and Zara, 42 — who is the king’s niece and daughter of The Princess Royal and ex-husband Mark Phillips — were seated one row behind Prince Harry, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie for the May 6 event. Prince William and Princess Kate, meanwhile, were seated at the first pew with their children Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louie, 5. Prince Edward and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, were also given front-row seats. (William and Kate’s eldest son, Prince George, 9, served as a Page of Honour in the ceremony.)
The athlete explained that while he was still seated fairly close to the monarch and Queen Camilla, the only way to actually see the coronation was to watch it unfold on screen.
“It was unbelievable to be sat where we were. Quite frustrating that you couldn’t see around the corner, but you had the TV there,” he revealed, noting that “everything went on sort of back and front” and he was thankful to have the privilege of watching history unfold.
“It’s one of those moments,” he gushed during his podcast. “I think the best bit of the day was the six and half hours of military footmen that were in the Buckingham Palace backyard and they did three cheers for the King — it was like whoa, goose pimples.”
Mike and Zara, who tied the knot in December 2010 and share three children, accompanied his in-laws throughout the majority of Coronation Weekend. The couple were first spotted attending a late-night dinner with other members of the royal family on May 5.
“It was quite nice to have a date night,” Mike gushed during his May 12 appearance on Good Morning Britain. “You know, when you have three children, it’s not the easiest to get out and just have a drink together, so it was quite nice to have a little bit of a time where we could go out and have a drink and have a chat. It was quite nice.”
The pair’s date night lasted into the early hours of the morning, shortly before they were set to attend the 74-year-old monarch’s crowning ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
“Adil [Ray], never worry about what’s tomorrow, enjoy the moment and you can deal with the next day later,” he joked to the GMB presenter, defending their choice to attend the soirée before the big day.
Mike later faced another major snag in his weekend while attending the coronation concert on May 7. The U.K. native tried his best to dance to performances by Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and more A-list singers, but felt he came up short.
“It’s very difficult when you’re on a raised platform that’s under a lot of lights, I felt I didn’t really put my best foot forward in terms of [my dancing],” the former outside center quipped during Good Morning Britain. “If you started doing interesting dance maneuvers on that platform next to the king, I’m not entirely sure it would have gone down that well!”
He added: “As Hitch once said in the [Will Smith] movie, ‘You’ve got to stay in your safe zone’ and my flag waving, I tried to do the best flag waving out there.”
