Body Language Expert Breaks Down When King Charles’ ‘Tantrums’ and ‘Bad Moods’ Got the Best of Him
King Charles III has spent his entire life in the spotlight but now that he’s the monarch the royal glare is shining on him more than ever and some of his “bad moods” haven’t gone unnoticed.
Now, a body language expert is analyzing the king’s public “tantrums” and the reasons he might be displaying that behavior.
Incident with pens
Body language and behavioral expert Judi James noted that Charles lost his cool in public twice in the days after his mother’s death, and his frustration was with some stationary.
“Two incidents in succession showed the new king was totally able to throw a mini-tantrum in public when he saw fit. Both involved pens,” James pointed out. “The first being his iconic signing the proclamation in London when some sort of pen-holder appeared to have been in his way. His hand-flapping was performed at the kind of rate that signals high levels of frustration and irritation and his lower jaw just bared his lower line of teeth in a way that emphasized that inner anger.”
The expert added that the second pen incident came when the king and Queen Consort Camilla (formerly known as Camilla Parker Bowles) were at Hillsborough Castle and the monarch was signing another document. When he noticed that ink from the fountain pen transferred onto his palm he quickly stood up and fumed: “God, I hate this! I can’t bear this bloody thing! Every stinking time!”
James said that showed Charles as a man “taking it personally.”
Annoyed with waiting for Camilla
The expert also observed an instance in December 2022 when according to James, Charles seemed to be in a “bad mood” during a walkabout in Wrexham. He became irritated that Camilla was lagging behind still chatting with someone in the crowd. The king then asked his aides to retrieve his wife so they could get going to their next engagement.
“Proving he is still on a short fuse, but taking it out on his wife this time rather than a pen, Charles displays not just a bad temper but also disloyalty here,” James claimed per Express. “Calling his wife ‘she’ and referring to the fact that he has an ongoing gripe with Camilla when he says ‘but she goes on,’ throwing his arms out to show exasperation.”
James continued: “There are no signs of good humor here, just a man pleading to his entourage to get him out of his situation and on to his next booking. I know people are creating empathetic links by saying this is a common theme between husbands and wives and that it makes Charles seem more human, but his wife is the new queen and he is making a very public scene about her that lowers her status.
“It might be understandable that Charles is under a lot of pressure recently but his mother provided the perfect role model when it came to carrying on with the job without complaining or showing any signs of disloyalty to her nearest and dearest.”
The body language expert concluded: “Charles’ public displays of tetchiness have always been eclipsed by his [late] father’s famously volcanic moods that would often be quite openly displayed when Philip’s irritability, annoyance or frustration got the better of him, but Charles had proved himself to be his father’s son on more than one occasion.”
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