From ‘telling black diners to go back to the Colonies’ and wearing a blackamoor brooch to branding the British ‘racist’… and now ‘bun-gate’: How ‘Pushy’ Princess Michael of Kent has courted controversy for decades

She was reportedly dubbed Princess ‘Pushy’ by the late Queen’s only daughter Princess Anne and her alleged controversial views have seen her make the headlines for less-than-pleasant reasons.

The most recent outcry is perhaps the mildest after Princess Michael of Kent turned her nose up at having to take a nibble out of a Chelsea bun. 

Dubbed ‘bun-gate’, Princess Michael didn’t take too kindly at being asked to eat a currant bun. 

Having stepped in to take the place of her daughter-in-law actress, Lady Sophie Winkleman, to judge the World Chelsea Bun Awards, the late Queen’s first cousin’s wife was apparently unaware that she would have to eat something

‘I wasn’t told by my daughter-in-law that I was going to do a taste. Because I’m not going to taste,’ she said on Channel 5’s The Royal Borough: Kensington & Chelsea.

Princess Michael of Kent’s latest faux pas has seen her refuse to eat a Chelsea bun at the World Chelsea Bun Awards 

‘When she said ‘help me out with is wonderful children’s charity’ she didn’t say I had to taste.’

The 78-year-old made the comments while at Partridges – an upmarket shop in Piccadilly – as she takes part in the judging. 

Instead, Princess Michael decided to judge the buns by eyesight only – before observing how the other judges, including Patridge’s managing director John Shephard, had a lot to eat.

‘I supposed the judges have to have a jolly good bite of each bun,’ she added.

‘I must say the look of them is just splendid, my expert eye goes straight to the biggest thing, they are beautiful,’ she went on.

It’s the latest in a long line of controversial musings from the Princess who once boasted of having more royal blood than any other royal to have married into the family since Prince Philip. 

The Czech princess joined the British Royal Family when she married Prince Michael of Kent in Vienna in 1978. 

Even the late Queen once joked she was ‘a bit too grand for us’. 

In 2017 she found herself in the centre of a racism storm again and apologised for wearing a ‘racist’ ‘blackamoor’ brooch when she met Meghan Markle at the Queen’s Christmas lunch

The Czech princess joined the British Royal Family when she married Prince Michael of Kent in Vienna in 1978

It is perhaps in 2004, though, when the Princess – also known as MC to her friends – sparked the most outrage when she allegedly told black diners to ‘go back to the colonies’.  

The alleged comments saw her being branded a racist by a group in New York restaurant Da Silvano when a row erupted over the noise she claimed they were making.

She supposedly slammed her hand down on the table, told them to they ‘need to quiet down’, before being accused of saying ‘you need to go back to the colonies’.

However, the princess was reportedly challenged at the time and was said to have replied: ‘I did not say ‘back to the colonies’, I said you ‘should remember the colonies’.’

The group included entertainment reporter AJ Calloway who was apparently surprised to hear she was a member of the royal family. 

‘I thought she was just a crazy woman. I still think she’s a crazy woman,’ he said at the time.

A spokesman denied that the princess made the slur, which reportedly arose from a confrontation about the group making too much noise in the restaurant. 

She made matters worse in an interview with ITV that year she denied she was a racist and said: ‘I even pretended years ago to be an African, a half-caste African, but because of my light eyes I did not get away with it, but I dyed my hair black.’

She has also taken aim at Princess Diana in the past, calling her ‘bitter’, ‘nasty’, and ‘uneducated’

She found herself at the centre of a racism row again in 2017 and apologised for wearing a ‘racist’ ‘blackamoor’ brooch when she met Meghan Markle at the Queen’s Christmas lunch.

The Princess was pictured clearly wearing the jewellery on her coat as she drove through the gate.

Blackamoor are a genre of figurines, small sculptures or jewellery which depict largely men, but sometimes women, with black skin usually from the 18th century.

A spokesperson for the royal said she was ‘very sorry and distressed’ for wearing the brooch, adding it was a gift she’s worn many times before, without controversy.

The full statement said: ‘The brooch was a gift and has been worn many times before.

‘Princess Michael is very sorry and distressed that it has caused offence.’ 

Those within the royal family have not escaped the Princess’s barbs either. In 2005 she was filmed meeting the ‘Fake Sheikh’ – the News of the World’s investigations editor Mazher Mahmood – where she takes aim at the late Princess Diana. 

In the meeting in which she thought she was speaking with a rich Arab, she calls the People’s Princess a ‘bitter’ and ‘nasty’ woman, as well as accusing the then Prince Charles of being ‘jealous’ of her popularity. He had merely married a ‘womb’, she said.

During a bizarre chat with disgraced media tycoon Conrad Black on Canadian TV in 2014, she would once again hit out at the royal family calling them ‘boring’.

Princess Michael would appear to take a swipe at Diana again during the chat.

She said: ‘Like probably many people of little education who find themselves, like pop stars or film stars, suddenly lauded by the whole world, it is very difficult if you have not had a mother bringing you up who was quite stern and strict.

‘She did not have a mother bring her up and she did not have much education, so it is much harder to cope with eulogy.’

In the 1980s she famously accused the British of racism when she said in an interview: ‘The English distrust foreigners.

‘I will never become British even if I live here the rest of my life.’

Her Princess ‘Pushy’ nickname was replaced with Princess Cushy in 2013 when she moaned about having to pay rent for Kensington Palace. 

Before 2010 she was paying just £69 a week in peppercorn rent, but would go on to pay £120,000 a year to stay at the palace, which has ten main rooms.

The new rent rate was imposed when the Queen was forced to restructure her grace-and-favour residences a few years ago to bring rents into line with present-day market values.

She also courted controversy when she told Tatler magazine she knew ‘the real story’ about Princess Diana following her death in 1997.