The Prince of Wales said his eldest son is following in his footsteps with an underwater interest
Prince George is making a splash with his new hobby, according to his father Prince William!
During a visit to the Birtley Community Pool in Tyne and Wear, England, on Oct. 3, the Prince of Wales, 42, revealed that his 11-year-old son is excited by scuba diving.
“George loves scuba diving. He’s 11 years old. We took him under thinking he would freak out. He absolutely loves it. It’s just introducing him to the world of water,” Prince William said at the stop, Hello! reported.
The royal made reportedly the revelation while meeting with swimmers Adam Peaty and Tom Dean, who recently represented Britain at the 2024 Paris Olympics, as did Paralympians Maisie Summers-Newton and Louise Fiddes, who were also at the table.
Prince George is the eldest of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s three children, and he may have been influenced to pursue the new scuba interest by both his mother and father. In 2022, the Prince and Princess of Wales snuck in a scuba diving excursion during their royal tour of the Caribbean and had a dive at South Water Caye to see the Belize Barrier Reef.
“Really fantastic to see the underwater environment here in Belize, and what wonderful work they’ve been doing to protect the coral and fish life,” the Prince of Wales and Earthshot Prize founder said in audio that rolled over undersea video of he and Princess Kate exploring the UNESCO World Heritage site.
The Prince and Princess of Wales are both known to enjoy swimming in general. Prince William played water polo for Eton College and the University of St. Andrews, while Princess Kate revealed on The Good, The Bad & The Rugby podcast last year that cold swimming was one of her fitness hobbies.
“The colder, the better. I absolutely love it,” the Princess of Wales said on the show, which is hosted by Princess Anne’s son-in-law Mike Tindall. “Slightly to the point where William’s like, ‘Catherine, you’re crazy.’ And it’s dark, and it’s raining,” she joked in the episode, released in September 2023.
While visiting the reopened Birtley Community Pool on Oct. 3, Prince William hinted at another family hobby — watching the Olympics! — and said that he didn’t travel to the games in Paris in light of his wife’s ongoing chemotherapy at the time. Princess Kate announced in March that she was undergoing treatment for cancer, and shared on Sept. 9 that she completed chemo.
“I was so keen to come, but I have to say after reading someone’s interview about COVID I decided, because my wife was obviously having chemo, that I didn’t want to risk bringing COVID home, so Adam very kindly reminded me that that was still a thing!” Prince William said in part at his latest engagement, according to Hello!.
“But we watched the whole thing. We were glued to it every day,” he added, apparently referring to his family.
The Prince and Princess of Wales are parents to Prince George, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6, and each brought along their elder two children to major sporting events over the summer — the UEFA European Championships in Germany for William and George, and a girls’ day at Wimbledon for Kate and Charlotte.
Beyond soccer (with an Aston Villa fandom!) and now scuba diving, Prince George is reportedly further following in his father’s sporty footsteps by taking flying lessons.
