3

Relationships Never Go Smoothly

Ah, soap opera love affairs. Has one ever worked out in the whole history of the medium? The same question could be asked of the royal family. Charles and Diana's disastrous union is obviously the most famous. They met when he was dating her older sister, so there's that. There's also the fact that his dad basically made him marry her since he was 32 and needed to settle down. She, on the other hand, was a 20-year-old sheltered virgin. It was doomed from the start. In their engagement interview, they were asked if they were in love, and Diana replied, "Of course!" Charles added, "Whatever 'in love' means." Yeah, try not to blow us away with the fairy-tale romance of it all, Charlie.

The problem, of course, was that he was infatuated with a woman who was already married. He is rumored to have had sex with Camilla Parker Bowles up to the night before he married Diana. He fully intended to give her up at that point, but we know by Diana's own admission that he was calling his mistress by the second day of their honeymoon. Years later, in a phone call that was leaked to the press, Charles would tell Camilla he wanted to be reincarnated as her tampon (that romance again!) After popping out the heir and the spare, Diana started having her own affairs. Honestly, it's amazing their relationship lasted as long as it did. And to throw a very soap opera twist into the works, there are people who think Harry isn't Charles' son, since one of the people we know for sure Diana was sleeping with looks whole lot like him.

Gareth Cattermole/Getty ImagesEveryone knows gingers are all related.

They weren't the only ones having affairs. Prince Andrew's wife "Fergie" was splashed across the papers when a photographer caught her laying by the pool, getting her toes sucked by a man who wasn't her husband (and for the record, was also not Quentin Tarantino). Despite their divorce, the two remain close friends, which was great, until she was caught in a sting operation offering access to her ex for 500,000 pounds. Princess Anne's marriage fell apart when she discovered her husband had fathered a child with his mistress. Princess Margaret stepped out on her husband constantly, sometimes with men decades younger than her. Even Prince Philip is rumored to have had numerous affairs, although if he has cheated on the Queen, he at least managed to be discreet about it.

Keystone/Getty ImagesHe probably had to beat them off with a scepter.

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Everyone Is Always Mad At Everyone Else

In your average soap opera, people are always angry. Someone is always screwing over someone else, and you get in a few good bitch-slaps an episode. While no one in the royal family has come to blows in public (yet), at least one member is feuding with another at any given time, usually about something ridiculously petty and using leaks to the press to make them look bad.

Currently, Prince Charles and Prince William are playing out their father-son drama for everyone to see. William has pretty much rejected his father and decided he likes his wife's commoner family better. It's gotten so bad that friends of Charles run to the media to tell them how he never sees his grandchildren. Meanwhile, William leaks back how he wants his kids to grow up differently than he did, openly calling his dad's parenting into question. Which is fair enough, considering Charles used to sell stories about his sons to the media if he thought they would make him look good.

The Daily ExpressThat ... would take some doing.

Not content with being involved in one fight at a time, Charles is also battling with his brother Prince Andrew over the role Andrew's daughters should play in the monarchy going forward. When he couldn't get anywhere with Charles, Andrew ran to mommy, and the Queen took his side (he is her favorite child, after all).

They aren't the only brothers who might be feuding. Prince William and Prince Harry share a press office, and royal watchers have noticed that every time William and Kate are called out by the media (usually for being unbelievably lazy), a negative story immediately leaks about Harry. The theory is that William might actually be ordering his employees to make his brother look bad to distract from his own increasingly terrible press.

1

The Plotlines Can Get Ridiculous

Soap operas are unapologetic about how out-there their stories can get. It's like their own Rule 34: If you can dream it, it's probably happened on one of them. My own personal favorite was the now-canceled Passions, which included a monkey who had sexual fantasies about a human. But the royal family can give them a run for their money.

Pool/Getty ImagesMy thoughts exactly.

In 1974, Princess Anne and her husband were returning from a film premiere. A car forced theirs to stop, and a man jumped out, two guns drawn. The royal bodyguard stepped out to meet him and was shot in the shoulder. The bodyguard tried to return fire, but his gun jammed. Then the assailant shot the driver, a bystander who attempted to intervene, and the bodyguard two more times. He got the back door open and tried to pull Anne out of the car, telling her she had to come with him. Instead she kicked the would-be kidnapper away and replied, "[Not] bloody likely." He turned and fled. Living up to her reputation as the hardest-working royal, Anne was back on the job the next day.

The Queen was terrified by what had happened to her daughter, but when she had her own run-in with a nutcase, she stayed cool. In 1982, 33-year-old Michael Fagan climbed a 14-foot wall topped with barbed wire, shimmied up a drainpipe, and entered Buckingham Palace. The alarm went off, but it was ignored. Fagan wandered around until he found the Queen's bedroom and went inside. She woke up and chatted with him, wondering why the hell no one was showing up to remove the crazy man sitting on her bed. Finally he asked for a cigarette and she was able to ring for help. His mother later said her recently divorced son had probably just wanted to "discuss his problems" with the Queen, and really, isn't that what she's there for?

Joel Rouse/ Ministry of DefenceHead of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, licensed therapist.

Of course, if you want to throw reality to the wind, you can have a lot of fun with royal conspiracy theories. Like Harry not being Charles' son. Or the surprisingly prevalent opinion that Prince Philip had Princess Diana killed, even though a years-long inquiry found it was a combination of paparazzi, speed, and a drunk driver. Or you could go full-on David Icke and look for signs that the royal family are all shapeshifting lizard people.

But why bother making stuff up when the real news about them is so juicy?

Kathy wrote a very funny book called Funerals To Die For, and you can buy it here. Or follow her on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter.

Think Nana and Pop-Pop's loving 60-year monogamous relationship is quaint and old-fashioned? First off, sorry for that disturbing image, but we've got some news for you: the monogamous sexual relationship is actually brand new relative to how long humans have been around. Secondly, it's about to get worse from here: monkey sex.

On this month's live podcast, Jack O'Brien and the Cracked staff welcome Dr. Christopher Ryan, podcaster and author of 'Sex at Dawn', onto the show for a lively Valentine's Day discussion about love, sex, why our genitals are where they are, and why we're more like chimps and bonobos than you think.

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