Ex-Royal Aide Reveals Secret Family Phone Nicknames Used by Staff

LONDON — Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, may be among the most recognizable royals in the world, but according to a former palace employee, staff members saved their contact information under a set of far less regal nicknames, alongside details of how heavily the royal family has relied on WhatsApp to stay in touch with relatives and staff.

Jack Stooks, a former royal gardener who worked for King Charles at Highgrove for decades, shared the details in an interview with GB News, describing how the royal family communicated privately both with each other and with staff. “The Royal Family are big WhatsApp users,” Stooks said, describing a range of group chats used across the family, including one for friends and a separate family group that included Prince William, Zara Tindall, Peter Phillips, and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

According to Stooks, senior royals shared their personal phone numbers with trusted members of staff to allow for more practical, direct communication. He said both William and Prince Harry actively encouraged aides to contact them through the messaging app whenever needed, rather than relying solely on more formal channels. To protect their privacy, however, staff reportedly avoided saving the royals under their real names, instead using coded nicknames. Stooks revealed that William was listed in staff phones as “Bobcat,” while Harry went by “Baz.” Following Kate’s marriage to William, she was reportedly added to contacts as “Mrs Bobcat.”

Beyond the nicknames themselves, Stooks offered a broader account of William’s working style with palace staff, describing him as considerate of employees’ existing workloads. He said the Prince of Wales made a habit of checking whether staff members were already busy before asking them for additional help, and that William would often thank staff afterward by telling them, “You’re a legend.”

Stooks also reflected on King Charles’ relationship with technology during his time working at Highgrove, describing the monarch as considerably less engaged with mobile devices than his sons. According to Stooks, Charles owned a simple mobile phone but rarely used it regularly during that period. Stooks said William and Harry frequently encouraged their father to embrace newer technology, but that Charles generally preferred a more traditional approach and showed limited interest in using his phone on a consistent basis.

The account offers a rare glimpse into the more informal, day-to-day dynamics between senior royals and the staff who work closely with them, a side of royal life that rarely receives public attention given the family’s general preference for formality in public-facing communications. The described use of WhatsApp for both personal and work-related messaging reflects a broader pattern common across many modern workplaces and families, even as the specific coded nicknames used to protect the royals’ identities in staff members’ phones point to the particular privacy and security considerations that come with working in close proximity to some of the world’s most closely watched public figures.

Stooks’ comments add to a broader body of insider accounts from former royal staff members that have periodically surfaced in British media over the years, offering the public occasional windows into aspects of royal family life that differ considerably from the family’s carefully managed public image. Such accounts typically cannot be independently verified beyond the credibility of the individual sharing them, and neither Kensington Palace nor representatives for William, Kate or Harry have issued any public confirmation or denial of the specific details Stooks described regarding the nicknames or the family’s use of WhatsApp.

The revelations arrive at a moment of heightened public attention on the relationship between William and Harry more broadly, following Harry and Meghan Markle’s return to the United Kingdom in late August and the more recent publication of excerpts from Charles Spencer’s memoir about Princess Diana, both of which have kept the royal family’s internal dynamics under close media scrutiny in recent weeks. Against that backdrop, lighter anecdotes such as Stooks’ account of staff nicknames and WhatsApp habits offer a notable contrast to the more serious and often tense coverage that has otherwise characterized recent reporting on relations between the brothers.

Stooks’ extended tenure working at Highgrove, King Charles’ private residence in Gloucestershire, gave him a vantage point on the family’s private habits and communications that few outside the household would typically have access to, lending a degree of specificity to his account that has helped it circulate widely since it was first published. Even so, as with most insider accounts from former staff, the details remain unverified beyond Stooks’ own recollection and cannot be independently confirmed through any official palace source.

With no official response yet issued addressing the specific claims about the royal family’s phone nicknames or messaging habits, Stooks’ account is likely to remain one of several recent behind-the-scenes anecdotes shaping public perception of the more private, informal side of royal family life, even as the family’s official public engagements continue to be defined by considerably more formal presentation.