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King Charles III has a nickname for his daughter-in-law Meghan Markle, and it is…strange, to say the least. The royal family has been in the news a lot lately due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II last month. But the mourning period is over, and it’s time for some fun royal news.
Royals expert and journalist Katie Nicholls wrote a book called The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth’s Legacy and the Future of the Crown, which came out Tuesday, October 4. It shares several details on the late queen’s successor, King Charles III. According to Nicholls, the king—who was reportedly envious that Kate Middleton’s style was more of a media magnet than his good deeds— gave the Duchess of Sussex the nickname “Tungsten.”
“Charles reportedly nicknamed his future daughter-in-law ‘Tungsten’ because of her toughness and resilience,” Nicholls wrote in the book, per a report from Entertainment Tonight.
Tungsten, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is “the chemical element of atomic number 74, a hard steel-gray metal of the transition series. It has a very high melting point (3410°C) and is used to make electric light filaments.” It’s a strange thing to call someone, but it is a compliment to Markle, especially considering all she’s been through since she began dating Prince Harry.
Nicholls writes in The New Royals that Charles first noticed Markle’s tungsten-level toughness at her first joint appearance with Harry, Prince William, and Kate Middleton during the Royal Foundation Forum in February 2018.
“It was, according to one aide, the moment William and Kate, who was heavily pregnant, realized they needed to up their game,” Nicholl wrote. “The Cambridges had already signaled their intention to be more than ‘ornamental royals’ and had, along with Harry, made a huge success of their mental health campaign Heads Together. But Meghan was the breakout star of the foursome. She was polished, passionate, and funny, using all her TV-honed skills to present her case. That was a wake-up moment for William and Kate when they realized that Meghan was very impressive, very confident, and very capable, according to a source,” Nicholls wrote.
Meghan “Tungsten” Markle has yet to weigh in on the nickname.
Originally published in Glamour.com
