King Charles' 6-word 'disappointed' response to Vanessa Feltz that left her baffled

gave a six-word response the last time they met that left her feeling confused and concerned.

The 62-year-old radio host and former star had been presented to the king on two separate occasions, and the first time was perfectly pleasant.

“He said the usual, you know, ‘How far have you come? Do you work nearby?’” Vanessa told the ahead of the publication of her new book, Vanessa Bears All. “But the second time I met him, in 1994, he just went: ‘Oh. Vanessa. Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa.’ I just thought, ‘What? What have I done anyway? What do you mean, for god's sake?’ I couldn't say that, of course! He wasn't the king then, he was only Prince Charles.”

The monarch’s evident disappointment in Vanessa still confuses her 30 years on. “I don't know what I'd done!” she laughed. “I think he sounded just like my mum, it was very familiar. I thought, ‘He gets me. He absolutely gets me’.”

While that brush with the was unsettling, Vanessa is much chirpier about another minor royal who inadvertently kick-started her ‘rollicking’ career. Sarah Ferguson, the then-Duchess of York who was married to Prince Andrew, had been while the pair lazed in the sun at her holiday villa in St Tropez.

“I do know Fergie, I've met her lots and lots of times,” Vanessa recalled. “She's always very friendly and nice. And slightly too confiding; you think: 'God, did she mean to say that?' It's a little alarmingly disarming. You think: 'Is she protecting yourself? Is anyone looking after her? Why is she saying all of that?' In a nice way, though, not in a bad way. In a good way.”

Texan billionaire Bryan had been spied by a pap and the arch of her foot. The pair were then seen kissing and frolicking in the pool, while two-year-old Princess Eugenie watched on.

The scandal was one of the biggest to hit the royal family in decades, and made the front page of several newspapers. It was just five months since , and the pictures were published after Sarah had flown home and was staying at the Queen’s Scottish getaway Balmoral with the rest of the family.

Vanessa had written an article about the toe-sucking shenanigans for a national women’s magazine, expanding it to look into other obscure erogenous zones - including the pate of a bald man’s head. Her piece caught the attention of researchers at , who rang her asking if she would come on air with to talk about it. Days later, she was on her way to the studio - and has been part of the family ever since.

“Certainly I'm grateful to Fergie because an article that I wrote about her toe-sucking was the springboard that got me into television,” Vanessa said with a smile. “And that was the launch of a television career that goes on to this day. I'm still on This Morning, all these years later. So thank you, Fergie!”

* Vanessa Bares All: Frank, Funny and Fearless, by Vanessa Feltz (Transworld, £22), published October 24.

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