Prince William made an unexpected gesture on a royal tour that one expert said has helped “smoothed his path to being King”.
In a recent BBC documentary, The Princes and the Press, royal journalists and experts recalled travelling to Pakistan on the same plane as William and the Duchess of Cambridge in 2019.
While on board the plane, Sky News correspondent Rhiannon Mills says William took the time to greet the travelling media to thank them for travelling to Pakistan to cover the trip.
She said: “We were on the plane to Pakistan and asked to go to the front of the plane, and basically told by Prince William, ‘thanks for coming’.
“[It was] really unexpected, he said ‘you should all take this as a group hug’."
And royal expert and Sunday Times royal editor Roya Nikkhah suggested that gestures such as these will help him when he becomes King.
She told the programme: “Has William making peace with the media smoothed the path towards his time in the monarchy when it comes to it? Yes it probably has.”
The two-part documentary by Amol Rajan looked at the relationships between Prince William and his younger brother Prince Harry with the media.
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It also charted the coverage of Harry and his wife Meghan Markle from their wedding in May 2018 until they quit the Royal Family and left the UK to start a new life in the United States.
During the documentary, the royal press pack who featured on it suggested Harry and Meghan's tour of Southern Africa in 2019 was a turning point for the Sussexes and their royal lives.
In contrast to his brother, on this tour, Harry didn't really engage with the media or "talk to us in the ways that he would have done", said Mills.
While fellow royal reporter Robert Jobson said Harry looked "furious with the media" while giving a speech in Johannesburg.
He said: "He didn't want to look at the cameras. He didn't want to interact."
In the previous week's show, there were claims that negative stories about Meghan were leaked by courtiers and there was competitiveness between William and Harry’s respective households.
At the end of both parts of the documentary, a rare joint statement was shown slamming some of the claims in the show as "unfounded".
The statement, from Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace and Clarence House, said: “A free, responsible and open Press is of vital importance to healthy democracy.
“However, too often overblown and unfounded claims from unknown sources are presented as facts and it is disappointing when anyone, including the BBC, gives them credibility.”
