Britain’s Queen Camilla said she was indecently assaulted by a man on a train in the 1960s, describing the incident publicly for the first time as she continues to campaign against domestic violence.
Speaking in a group interview with surviving family members of Louise Hunt, Camilla said she had fended off the attacker when she was a teenager, and that the experience later led her to speak out about violence against women.
Camilla told the BBC that, during the attack, she was “reading my book, and you know, this boy, man, attacked me, and I did fight back,” adding that she remembered getting off the train and her mother looking at her with alarm.
She said her mother asked, “Why is your hair standing on end?” and “Why is a button missing from your coat?”
Camilla said the assault left her “furious,” but that she kept it quiet for many years, until she heard other women recount their own experiences.
She said the timing of her decision reflected the way domestic violence had long been treated as private and difficult to discuss, describing it as a “taboo subject” and saying most people do not realize “how bad the situation is.”
Camilla said she wanted to use her public role to encourage conversation, saying, “I thought, well, if I’ve got a tiny soapbox to stand on, I’d like to stand on it,” and that her options were limited to “talk to people and get people together.”
The interview included surviving family members of Louise Hunt—Louise Hunt, 25, her sister Hannah Hunt, 28, and their mother Carol Hunt, 61—who were murdered by Louise’s ex-partner at their home outside London in July 2024.
Camilla also praised former racing commentator John Hunt and his daughter Amy for their efforts to fight domestic violence, telling them: “Wherever your family is now, they’d be so proud of you both,” and that they must be, “from above, smiling down on you and thinking, ‘My goodness me, what a wonderful, wonderful father, husband, sister. They’d just be so proud of you both.’”
While Camilla said the public comments were the first time she had spoken about the train assault, the incident had previously been recounted in a book by Valentine Low published earlier this year, Power and the Palace.
According to Low’s account, Camilla told the former prime minister Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London, and the book says Camilla was then traveling to London’s Paddington Station when the man next to her reached out and tried to touch her.
Low’s book says Camilla fought him off by removing her shoe and bashing him in the groin, and that after she arrived at Paddington she told a man in uniform, who arrested the suspect.