King Charles Broke Royal Family Protocol With A Kiss

The British monarchy is known for being a stickler for the rules, but King Charles recently broke royal protocol during an outing with his wife, Queen Camilla.

On July 16, the couple visited the Channel Islands, where they stopped by the St. Peter Port seafront and mingled with royal spectators. In a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) by the BBC, Charles is seen exchanging words with an elderly woman in the crowd. In a rare move, the King then offers his cheek to the woman, later identified as 91-year-old Kathleen Moriarty, who proceeds to kiss the monarch.

“I said to him, ‘Please can I give you a kiss?’ And he gives me his cheek,” Moriarty told the BBC after the exchange. “I just did it! I didn’t plan it, and I enjoyed it. He’s lovely. It was very nice. I am pleased. I thought if all these young dolly birds can do it, this old lady can!”

As noted on the official royal family website, “There are no obligatory codes of behavior” when meeting a King or Queen, but members of the public, and the royal family themselves, usually “wish to observe the traditional forms.”

For men, these traditional forms include “a neck bow (from the head only),” while women tend to “do a small curtsy.” The royal website additionally states that shaking hands with a King or Queen “in the usual way” is also commonplace.

While unusual, this isn’t the first time King Charles has allowed a royalist to kiss him during an outing. Shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, the British monarch greeted well-wishers outside Buckingham Palace who had come to pay their respects.

In footage shared by CNN, one admirer named Jenny Assiminios enjoyed a brief conversation with Charles, before planting a kiss on his cheek.

“I have seen him in front of me. I couldn’t believe it, and I said to him, ‘May I kiss you?’ He said ‘Well, yes,’ so I grabbed him, and I was very happy,” Assiminios later told CNN. “Thank you, God, for letting me see him and kiss him.”