Princess Anne Insults a Fan
On Christmas Day 2000, 75-year-old pensioner Mary Halfpenny spent three hours making a flower display for the Queen Mother, then waited patiently outside a church on Sandringham Estate — one of the royal family's country homes — hoping to present it to her. The exchange never happened. Instead, Princess Anne, Queen Elizabeth II's only daughter, grabbed the bouquet and huffed, "What a ridiculous thing to do!" The incident left Halfpenny reeling. "It was a really hurtful thing to say," she told reporters. "I've made baskets of flowers for the Queen, and she has always said how nice they are." And Anne's un-princesslike attitude didn't end there: she reportedly told her nieces, princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, to "get a move on" and discouraged them from accepting flowers from well-wishers.