Kate Winslet had a memorable first encounter with King Charles III.
The Oscar winner, 50, recalled meeting the then-Prince Charles for the first time at the February 1996 royal premiere of Sense and Sensibility in London — and how she didn’t factor in her outfit for the occasion.
“The first time I met him. Oh, my goodness. He had come to support the royal premiere of Sense and Sensibility when I was 20,” Winslet said on the Tuesday, November 18, episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
“I sort of hadn’t realized we were really going to meet him. So I forgot about the fact that I really was wearing a kind of transparent lace outfit,” the actress continued. “And thank God I’d worn a coat because, as he’s making his way toward me, I’m like, ‘Nipples! Nipples! Nipples! Oh, my God.’ And then someone just went, ‘Coat!’ and [I covered myself] and went, ‘Your Majesty.’”
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Winslet has rubbed shoulders with the monarch several times since then and is one of the ambassadors for the King’s Foundation, Charles’ educational charity.
The Titanic star described Charles as “really an extraordinary man,” adding, “He’s very, very kind and extremely empathetic and very, very generous.”
The last time Winslet met the monarch was in June this year when she attended the King’s Foundation Awards ceremony at St James’s Palace along with David Beckham and Meryl Streep.
Speaking to host Jimmy Kimmel, Winslet recalled that there was some concern about whether she and Streep, 76, would have to curtsy before the king.
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“There was a conversation about this. So, Meryl and I, as we were walking to meet the king, she says to me, ‘Do you think we have to curtsy?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely, we have to curtsy,’” Winslet said. “She was like, ‘OK, is it, like, a big curtsy? What do we do?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. We’ll just make the motion.’ She was like, ‘I don’t know if we need to do that.’ There was a big panic. We didn’t know what the form was. Obviously, we had to curtsy.”
“Did I go first? I think I did,” Winslet said, revealing that she took the charge to save her fellow Oscar winner from any embarrassment. “But then I’m always trying to volunteer to go first because I feel like leadership is important and someone has to get it wrong, and it’s usually me that does, so I don’t mind taking the hit.”
Winslet was announced as the latest ambassador for the King’s Foundation in June.
“I am delighted to become an Ambassador for The King’s Foundation in the charity’s 35th anniversary year,” she said in a statement at the time. “One of my passions is exploring ways that we can protect and promote the natural world – something I have in common with His Majesty! I am therefore thrilled to put this passion into practice by working with The King’s Foundation. I look forward to supporting the charity’s life changing work to build sustainable communities and transform lives into the future.”
