Queen Camilla has two children from her previous marriage: Tom Parker Bowles, a 49-year-old well-known food critic and author, and his younger sister, Laura Lopes, a 46-year-old art curator who prefers to keep out of the media spotlight.
Here’s what we know about Queen Camilla’s elusive daughter.
Laura Rose Parker Bowles was born in 1978 to Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles, a retired British army officer. She spent much of her childhood at Bolehyde Manor, an eight-bedroom country estate in Wiltshire, complete with a swimming pool, tennis courts, and 70 acres of land.
Laura received her education at St Mary’s Shaftesbury, a Catholic girls’ boarding school, where the annual boarding fees were reported to be £12,300 (US$15,840). The school, however, closed its doors in 2020.
Marriage to a Former Calvin Klein Model
In 2006, Laura married Harry Lopes, a former Calvin Klein model who transitioned into a career as a chartered accountant. Their wedding took place in Wiltshire, where Laura wore an Anna Valentine bridal gown, the same designer her mother, Camilla, chose for her own wedding to King Charles in 2005.
Harry Lopes comes from an aristocratic lineage. He is the grandson of Massey Henry Lopes, the second Baron Roborough, and stands to inherit Gnaton Hall in Devon and the Skelpick Estate in the Scottish Highlands. Additionally, he has ties to the Astor family, one of America’s wealthiest dynasties.
The couple has three children: Eliza, now 15, and twin sons, Gus and Louis, who are 14 years old.
A Complicated Relationship with Her Royal Stepbrothers
The turbulent love triangle involving then-Prince Charles, his ex-wife Princess Diana, and Camilla Parker Bowles was widely covered in the media. According to Katie Nicholl’s 2010 book William and Harry: Behind the Palace Walls, Laura and Prince William often clashed over their parents’ relationship after King Charles and Queen Camilla married in 2005.
Nicholl wrote that William would sometimes blame Camilla for the pain she caused his mother, which would infuriate Laura. She reportedly defended her mother fiercely, telling William, “Your father has ruined my life.”
However, it appears that the step-siblings have since reconciled. Notably, Laura’s daughter Eliza served as a flower girl at Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding in 2011.
A Career in the Art World
Laura pursued her education at Oxford Brookes University, where she studied history of art and marketing. Today, she works as an art curator, continuing to stay mostly out of the public eye while focusing on her career.
