ROYALS'Gutsy' Queen Elizabeth II Would 'Drive Her Cars Fast Around Balmoral' Despite Her 'Shy' Demeanor, Royal Aide Reveals
Queen Elizabeth II wanted to balance being a monarch and 'a family woman.'
Maybe Queen Elizabeth wasn’t as uptight as she seemed!
In a new interview with trusted royal aid Samantha Cohen, published on Saturday, October 12, the employee recalled working for the longtime monarch for 18 years.
The royal aide claimed Queen Elizabeth II 'loved hosting everybody for summer' at Balmoral Castle.
By the end of the mother-of-four’s life, the Australian-born aide spent every day with the queen as her personal assistant. Cohen even lived in Balmoral, Scotland, with Elizabeth, where she was when she passed in September 2022.
Cohen explained that the queen “wanted to be a family woman” in addition to being a good leader.
“It was important to her. She loved hosting everybody for summer, allocating the rooms and checking them herself,” Cohen explained.
Cohen then revealed a more shocking side of Elizabeth, noting that she had speedy driving habits.
The royal employee recalled that Queen Elizabeth II was 'remarkably kind and would give us all Christmas presents.'
“She was gutsy,” she recalled. “She would drive her cars fast around Balmoral.”
Not only did Elizabeth, who was queen for 70 years, like taking a ride in her cars, but she also enjoyed horseback.
Cohen remembered how her children would sometimes run into Elizabeth on her horse.
"Some mornings, I'd be getting the cereal for breakfast, and the kids would go, 'Mum! The Queen just rode past on her horse.' Other times, they'd bump into her on their bicycles," she shared. "The Queen loved families having a nice time and hearing what everyone was doing."
The aide recalled how her kids would often would often run into Queen Elizabeth II riding her horse.
Want OK! each day? Sign up here!
As for how Elizabeth treated her employees, Cohen gushed.
"They made us feel so welcome, very much a part of their lives," she explained. "The Queen was remarkably kind and would give us all Christmas presents, handwriting the tags."
Cohen then told the news outlet about her favorite memory with the 96-year-old.
“She was always sitting at her desk beside the window, and you would go through the basket, what had come in that morning,” she began.
The aide recalled she and Queen Elizabeth 'had fun' together while she worked for her.
"This day, she said, ‘Oh, hold on a minute, there’s a butterfly, we must get it out.’ There was this beautiful butterfly sitting on a book. She got up, picked it up and it flew away. Then I caught it and it flew out of my hands. Then she caught it. It was hilarious, she was laughing, I was laughing, eventually, she caught it, we opened the window, freed the butterfly, and she said, ‘Right, where were we?’” she said of Elizabeth.
“She was so playful,” the worker raved. “We just had fun.”
Though the duo enjoyed their time together, Cohen insisted their relationship was always “very respectful.”
“There were no favorites. I felt my job was to make her life as easy as possible,” she said, noting “the Queen was an incredible boss.”
Cohen assured that Elizabeth had “no ego,” sharing how it was one thing she admired about the matriarch.
“It always struck me that in a world of celebrity, where we had all sorts of celebrities coming into the palace, the Queen was the antithesis of celebrity,” she claimed. “She was the maestro. She understood this was her role. She took it very seriously and performed it to perfection. But she knew it was separate to her as a person. She was never intoxicated by the allure, never showed off, was never tempted to preen.”
“I loved that so much about her,” Cohen concluded.
The Sunday Times interviewed Cohen.
