Former Royal Butler Shares Secrets Behind the Family's Private Movie Nights: "It's Not Quite Like the Cinema"
Grant Harrold reveals the "little bit posher, but still fun" movie-going experience at the palace.
If you’re Queen Camilla or Princess Kate, you can’t exactly turn up to the local movie theater with your friends and see Wuthering Heights. But as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s BBC Newsnight interviewer, Emily Maitlis, once revealed, Buckingham Palace is often transformed into a secret cinema for members of the Royal Family and their staff. Now former royal butler Grant Harrold, who worked for King Charles at Highgrove, is sharing what it was really like to watch movies with the royals.
Opening up about his experience to Smooth Spins Casino, Harrold explained how rooms in various royal residences are rearranged to replicate a movie-going experience. “There’s a mixture of sofas and armchairs, and then, as you go down the ranks, there are normal dining chairs,” he shared of the ballroom setup.
“The movie night that I went to at Balmoral, there were no snacks or drinks,” Harrold recalled. “They have it sometimes at Sandringham as well, which is mainly with friends and family. For some reason, I remember there being drinks and food at Sandringham. I think it was just some sweets or Jammy Dodgers [jam-filled cookies] in packets.”
Princess Diana attends a movie premiere with Liza Minelli in 1991 at London's Empire Cinema.
The former Highgrove butler says he saw the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt flick Mr. Mrs. Smith at the time, noting that the royals show “a mixture of old and new movies” ranging “from every genre and every era.” Queen Elizabeth was apparently a big fan of old musicals and “loved South Pacific,” Harrold revealed, while King Charles also enjoyed classic films.
Harrold revealed that he once “gave Charles a video of Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis to watch once, and he liked that. That gives you an idea of the King’s sort of taste in films.”
As for who would be in attendance, the former butler said that “the Royal Family and their guests” would typically join in, “and then the staff would watch from the sidelines.” When he worked for the family between 2004 and 2011, Harrold recalled “it would be the [late] Queen, Prince Philip, Charles, Camilla and Edward. It was very much an open ticket.”
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry attend the premiere of Bob Marley: One Love at the Carib 5 Theatre in Kingston, Jamaica.
He shared that “some nights you had a full house, but it really depended on the movie,” adding, “I remember going into the ballroom at Balmoral once and the chairs were all there, but not a single member of the Royal Family appeared.”
Describing the experience as “not quite like the cinema,” Harrold admitted, “It’s a little bit posher, but still fun.”
As for Maitlis, she was actually invited to stay on for a palace movie night after her infamous 2019 interview with the former Duke of York. In 2019, she wrote about the experience in the Times, explaining how the floors were "being transformed by palace workmen" for the special screening.
When she suggested they hold a viewing of royal drama The Crown, a staff member told her, “We had Downtown Abbey last week. But we don't do The Crown here.” Fair enough.
