Queen Camilla Was Sexually Assaulted as a Teen, New Book Claims

A new book about the relationship between the British royal family and the country’s politicians details an account given by Queen Camilla about a sexual assault she experienced as a teenager.

An excerpt from Valentine Low’s new book Power and the Palace, published in The Times on Sunday, Aug. 31, recounts the first few encounters between Camilla, now 78, and then-London mayor Boris Johnson in 2008.

According to Guto Harri, the communications director who worked with Johnson, 61, when he was the newly elected mayor of London at the time, Camilla invited Johnson to Clarence House for a first meeting.

Harri said that Camilla shared a deeply personal story from her teenage years during their meeting, related to Johnson’s plan to open three rape crisis centers in London.

“[The] serious conversation they had was about her being the victim of an attempted sexual assault when she was a schoolgirl,” Low writes in the book.

“She was on a train going to Paddington — she was about 16, 17 — and some guy was moving his hand further and further … ‘At that point Johnson had asked what happened next. She replied: ‘I did what my mother taught me to. I took off my shoe and whacked him in the nuts with the heel.’ Harri said: ‘She was self-possessed enough when they arrived at Paddington to jump off the train, find a guy in uniform and say, ‘That man just attacked me’, and he was arrested.’ ”

“The relevance of this conversation was that Johnson at the time wanted to open three rape crisis [centers]. There was already one in south London, and he wanted to open ones in east, west and north London,” Low writes. “Harri said: ‘I think she formally opened two out of three of them. Nobody asked why the interest, why the commitment. But that’s what it went back to.’ ”

Buckingham Palace declined to comment when reached by PEOPLE.

Camilla has long made supporting victims of rape, domestic violence and sexual abuse a key priority of her public work. In March, she reached out to Gisèle Pelicot to commend her for her “extraordinary dignity and courage.”

The Queen was “tremendously affected” by last year’s rape trial in southern France, which ended with Pelicot’s husband, Dominique, being found guilty of repeatedly drugging and raping his wife of 50 years. 

“As a long-term supporter of survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, the Queen wrote to Madame Pelicot privately,” a royal aide told Newsweek. “It was very much her instigation and determination to write to express support from the highest level.”

The palace aide said that statement also resonated deeply with Queen Camilla. “As [Pelicot] rightly put it, why should she be made to feel like a victim or hide away in shame?”

“She helped highlight a very significant societal problem despite all the personal suffering she’d been through,” they continued of Camilla’s admiration.

Last year, the Queen also hosted a reception at Buckingham Palace to recognize supporters of survivors of sexual assault and mark the relaunch of the Wash Bags project, which provides toiletries to those affected by rape and abuse.

“Each one of you has a powerful story to tell: whether you work in this country or overseas; whether you are based in a refuge, a Sexual Assault Referral Centre, a charity, Parliament, or, most important of all, you are a survivor,” she said in part during the event, addressing center staff, police officers service users and other guests.

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She has also been involved in a number of other projects to advocate for victims, including SafeLives, a charity that works to stop domestic violence. In 2024, she also appeared in a TV documentary titled Her Majesty The Queen: Behind Closed Doors that followed the Queen as she works to raise awareness of domestic and sexual violence.

In a 2021 speech at a Women of the World event, Camilla condemned the “culture of silence” that fosters abusers and keeps victims from coming forward.

“After all, rapists are not born, they are constructed,” she said at the time. “And it takes an entire community — male and female — to dismantle the lies, words and actions that foster a culture in which sexual assault is seen as normal and in which it shames the victim.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.