'Like The Truman Show': Unprecedented threat facing royal children as they near high school

Royal Briefing is a new vodcast on nine.com.au discussing the biggest royal stories around the world. The first four episodes are available to watch now on YouTube.

As Prince George prepares to enter high school later this year, he and his two siblings are facing an unprecedented situation their parents never had to deal with as students: social media and AI.

"It's almost going to be like The Truman Show for these kids," nine.com.au entertainment editor Nicole Douglas says in the latest episode of the new vodcast Royal Briefing.

Watch the video above.

Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis will have to deal with the issue of mobile phones which was unheard of when Prince William and Prince Harry started at Eton in the 1990s, nine.com.au royal reporter Natalie Oliveri says.

"[Back then] there was an agreement between the palace and the media that the children would be left alone," Oliveri says in Royal Briefing.

"And when William went to university, that agreement still stood."

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"Now, it's so different because there is social media. Every student has a phone. Everyone's got access to social media.

"The Wales children are going to be faced with this bizarre reality of potentially being filmed in class or going out with their friends – things their parents didn't have to deal with.

"I think that's going to be really, really tough for them to handle."

Recently, the Prince and Princess of Wales were seen visiting a boarding school for Princess Charlotte. Kensington Palace will soon announce where Prince George will attend when the new school year begins in September, soon after his 13th birthday in July.

Douglas believes there is a more worrying issue the children, and all royals in general, are facing in the coming months and years.

"All of this AI content, these royals are going have to live through a world where you don't know what's real and fake," Douglas says.

"You don't know who to believe, who to trust. We're living in a futuristic world with this really old fashioned system [the monarchy]. And I just worry that these kids, we're preparing them for a world that's about 50 years out of date."

Oliveri points to a recent example of AI-generated images of Princess Elisabeth of Belgium and another royal, sparking rumours of a romance that was swiftly shut down by the palace.

"She actually had to come out to deny she was in a relationship with this person from a different royal family because there were these AI generated photos of them all over social media."

Watch the Royal Briefing vodcast in full on YouTube here