Lily Collins Recalls Making Royal Faux Pas When Meeting Princess Diana

January 5, 2022, 5:51pm

As the daughter of music legend Phil Collins, Emily in Paris star Lily Collins had a unique childhood. She even met the royal family as a toddler, leading to an awkward moment with Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Collins, 32, told James Corden Tuesday she made a serious mistake when her father and mother took her to a Prince’s Trust event in the early 1990s.

On The Late Late Show with James Corden, the host showed an old photo of Collins with her father Phil and mother Jill Tavelman meeting Charles and Diana. The photo captures a bouquet exchange, which Collins said did not go well.

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.@lilycollins had a totally normal childhood full of stuff like, you know, tormenting the Royal Family! pic.twitter.com/T2XvoqrqBW
— The Late Late Show with James Corden (@latelateshow) January 5, 2022

“I have been told that this is what happened,” Collins explained. “That’s my mom and my dad and I, and it’s a Prince’s Trust event and I’m giving Diana flowers, but the second she went to take them, I then tried to pull them back.” According to Collins the “air was sucked out of the room,” but since she was wearing a cute dress at the time, no one was going to punish her.

It turns out that when you’re the child of a British rock star, you have more than one awkward encounter with the royal family. The Emmy-nominated star told Corden that she once threw a toy at Charles when she was 2 years old. “I was also told that when I was younger, I was playing with some toys with Prince Charles and I proceeded to kind of throw something at him, like, throw a toy telephone at his head,” Collins recalled. “Which again, all the air was sucked out of the room.”

Corden was shocked and wondered why she had so many stories about meeting the royal family as a toddler. “My dad did a lot of stuff for the Prince’s Trust, and I grew up in England, you know, I’m British,” she explained, notes PEOPLE. “I just went along for the ride, and I guess I had a tendency to do naughty things as a two-year-old.”

Collins is one of Phil’s five children, and his only one with his second wife, Tavelman. After Phil and Tavelman divorced in 1996, Collins moved to Los Angeles with her mother. Last year, she earned an Emmy nomination as a producer on Netflix’s Emily in Paris. The show’s second season is now available on Netflix.