Prince William’s Family Bike Ride Interrupted by Paparazzi: Kensington Palace Calls it a Breach of Privacy

Prince William has always been vocal about his desire to create a safe and peaceful environment for his family.

Unfortunately, this ambition suffered a setback recently when a video of the Duke confronting a photographer after he was shot with his family went viral.

The clip, which was uploaded to YouTube and viewed over 20,000 times, showed Prince William getting irate with the photographer after spotting him while he, Catherine and their children were enjoying a peaceful family bike ride last year.

This incident has caused Kensington Palace to slam the video as a breach of privacy.

The video is believed to have been recorded in January 2021 as the family rode their bikes on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, where the Duke and Duchess' home, Anmer Hall, resides.

In the clip, the photographer tried to deny any wrongdoing, telling the father of three, “I've just realised who it was and I've just stopped.”

To which William responded, “You didn't.

You have been looking for us.”

The Duchess of Cambridge was also heard getting angry off camera, as she said, “We're out for a bike ride with our children, we saw you by our house.”

William could then be heard saying, “How dare you behave like you have done with our children.

How dare you.

Stalking around here looking for us and our children.

I'm out for a quiet bike ride with my children on a Saturday and you won't even give me your name.

You're outrageous, you really are.

Why are you here?

Thanks for ruining our day.”

According to the Telegraph, Kensington Palace has responded by arguing it was a breach of the family's privacy and that Palace staff attempted to have the video removed after it surfaced.

It is believed to be against the Royal's usual privacy policy, and their appeals for unauthorised photos of the children to be removed have been successful in the past.

The Duke, who watched his mother's experience with the paparazzi as a schoolboy, has spent years finessing an arrangement in which he authorises a small number of photographs of the children each year in recognition of their future public roles, while insisting on their total privacy the rest of the time.

Prince William has been vocal about his disdain for social media, with the Duke saying he was very concerned in a scathing speech at the BBC in London in 2018.

“I am very concerned, though, that in every challenge they face – fake news, extremism, polarisation, hate speeches, trolling, mental health, privacy and bullying – our tech leaders seem to be on the back foot,” he said in 2018.

This is not the first time that the Cambridges have faced down the press.

In 2017, France's Closer magazine was ordered to pay 100,000 euros at a Paris court over a long-lens image of Catherine sunbathing on a terrace, after it was ruled they had breached her privacy.

Neither of the Royals attended any of the court sessions, but William did present statements attacking the paparazzi.

Prince William's difficult relationship with photographers has been widely discussed over the years, with the Duke invoking a law to protect his wife Catherine from paparazzi when they started dating and even issuing a statement to the press to stop them harassing her.

But experts have spoken out about how the late Princess Diana's challenges with photographers fuelled his commitment to protecting his own family and ensuring their privacy, with former editor of The Sun, Kelvin McKenzie, telling Channel 5 documentary The Tabloids and the Royals, “If you're William, you'd see your mother basically pursued down the high street by photographers.

That would have left a scar on him.

It was certainly having an effect on him.”

Last month, William's fiercely protective outburst, while also being photographed on a family bike ride, made the news with commentators calling him a lion when it comes to ensuring his little ones, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, are given privacy.

Royal commentator and author Robert Jobson spoke to True Royalties' The Royal Beat about a family cycle ride in Norfolk that infuriated the Duke due to the lurking photographers.

He claimed, “When it comes to William's family, he's a lion.

He was out on the Sandringham Estate when they were all having a bike ride and a photographer was seen.

The cameraman didn't have his camera out, but William went steaming over and really ripped him off and told him what he thought and the police moved him on.

He is fiercely protective of his children and that's right.

Everyone has their moments.

You can't just be this perfect couple all the time in public.”

Despite being the future King and Queen of England, the couple are known for wanting to raise their three children in as normal a way as possible, regardless of their prominence in the royal family.

They are astute when it comes to sharing their children with the press and public, sporadically releasing intimate photographs of the children, often taken by Catherine, in exchange for a certain level of privacy on non-official engagements.