As the great-granddaughter of Lord Mountbatten, her family are deemed more royal than the royals.
However, new mother Maddison May Brudenell admits that they haven’t been able to resist tuning in to watch their lives be played out on The Crown.
The British royal family has insisted they don’t watch the Netflix series, which documents the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II and recreates highly personal events.
Earl Spencer, Princess Diana’s brother, previously revealed he felt uneasy watching his sister’s depiction in the drama and that he feared viewers will ‘forget it is fiction’.
But the King’s former communications director Kristina Kyriacou has admitted that Queen Camilla ‘definitely’ watches the show, though it does not ‘tickle’ Charles’s fancy.
Speaking to FEMAIL at Tilly Wood’s Aja Botanicals event at Gold Notting Hill, Maddison, 31, confirmed once and for all that her family does watch the show – and revealed what they really think about it.
‘We’ve watched a little bit, but my grandmother [Lady Pamela Hicks] says it’s very dramatised. I prefer to read my grandmother’s anecdotes, and speak with her,’ she shared.
However, though she admitted it’s ‘surreal’ to watch, she also said she feels the ‘responsibility’ of having such a heritage.
Maddison May Brudenell is pictured with her son Michael, as well as Rowan Brudenell and Natalia Cassel at Gold Notting Hill yesterday
She continued: ‘It’s always made me want to take my place in this world very seriously, so I take great consideration over the actions and the choices that I make.
‘I think it’s the privilege – I don’t take that for granted. I think there is a lot of people in this world who are wonderful, kind and great people, but they don’t have that opportunity that I have, so I want to ensure that I don’t negate that opportunity to speak and to be able to make a difference.’
Maddison recently welcomed baby number four in August after splitting from her first husband, and remarried Canadian welder Bret Kapetanov in October.
Speaking about baby Michael, she said he’s been ‘sleeping fantastically and I’m really glad’, but did say ‘for now we’re done [having children].
She laughed: ‘I’ve actually been taking some guidance from Taking Cara Babies on Instagram, and she has some fantastic tips. I think the experience helps once you’ve done it so many times.’
As for her famous relatives, she hinted that she doesn’t often see King Charles.
‘He’s a very busy man, but my brother is his godson. We’re just in the throes of young family life, and that’s the reality,’ she said.
The former Ralph Lauren model shares three children with DJ Olaoluwa Modupe-Ojo and was in the midst of their divorce when she met welder Bret during a trip to Ontario.
Maddison (pictured) admits that her family has watched a ‘little bit’ of The Crown
Charles Dance as Lord Louis Mountbatten ‘The Crown’ TV show season three
The late Queen pictured speaking with Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, in March 1958
Within months of that first meeting, Bret relocated to the UK and proposed to Maddison in June 2023.
In an interview with Hello!, Maddison explained how she was in labour for 40 hours with their son Michael Adam at the family home.
She opened up about her dramatic home birth, which saw her rushed to hospital after a 40-hour labour.
She explained: ‘I lifted him out of the water and held him to my chest, and then I heard a snap, it was very alarming.
‘Michael went white and then the midwives took over; then the ambulances and paramedics arrived.’
Umbilical cord breakage is a severe childbirth complication and usually is the result of compression caused by vasa previa, where blood vessels block the birth canal.
Alternatively, it can also be caused by a umbilical cord prolapse – where the cord drops through the birth canal before the baby.
Although the mother did not explain why her umbilical cord broke, Maddison and Michael were subsequently hospitalised – but both mother and son appear to have made a full recovery.
Within months of their first meeting in Ontario, Bret relocated to the UK and proposed to Maddison in June 2023
Maddison has revealed she was in labour for 40 hours with their son Michael Adam (pictured) at the family home
Posting on her Instagram Stories, Maddison said: ‘I thought my fourth baby would be my easiest. This labour really surprised me.’
Elsewhere in the interview, Maddison – who is the granddaughter of Lady Pamela Hicks – revealed that she had named her youngest son after her grandfather Michael Brudenell, who was a royal obstetrician.
Maddison’s grandfather delivered all of the late Queen’s children and died in March 2015, just two weeks before his 90th birthday.
Despite their wildly different backgrounds, Maddison revealed her family has been very welcoming towards her husband-to-be – and says Lady Pamela is ‘very proud to call Bret her new grandson-in-law’.
She added: ‘He had a very different upbringing to me, working on the farm and going to work before school and after school. In that regard, he’s a gentleman, and he knows how to treat a woman, and he knows how to respect his elders. He’s shown Grandmama nothing but respect, and she holds him in high regard because of it.’
Maddison, the daughter of actor Jeremy Brudenell and Edwina Hicks, married Modupe-Ojo – whose stage name is Jazz Purple – in 2015.
Maddison’s great-grandfather was King Charles’s beloved great-uncle, the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma.
She explained that she bonded with Modupe-Ojo, who grew up in Manchester, through music and their marriage came as a surprise to Maddison’s peers.
‘I fell in love with his work, and I started attending concerts, but it wasn’t until a year later that we got together,’ she said.
‘We ran away and eloped in a small family wedding. Our children are blessed to have the most wonderful dual heritage.’
Society had been transfixed when Maddison secretly ran off to be married to DJ Olaoluwa Modupe-Ojo in 2015 (pictured together). However, the couple have since separated
She had followed her mother’s footsteps into the fashion business when she was signed as a model by the agency Storm at the age of 16. She has worked for the likes of Ralph Lauren and Belstaff.
Now a ‘well-being’ advocate, she says entering the business so young affected her mental health.
‘I was depressed, anxious, feeling pressure in the industry to keep my weight down, to party,’ she said. ‘I was addicted to drugs and battling an eating disorder.’
Maddison attended the funeral of Queen Elizabeth in September 2022. Her grandmother, Lord Mountbatten’s daughter Lady Pamela, is one of the Queen’s two surviving bridesmaids and a former lady-in-waiting.
Maddison has fond memories of the Queen Mother, whom she stood next to on the Buckingham Palace balcony after watching Trooping the Colour.
‘I’d not had such an awesome experience before,’ she recalled. ‘I remember her turning to me and saying, “There are a lot of horses, aren’t there? How many do you think?” I was sort of gobsmacked, I guess, I just replied, “I don’t know”.’
Maddison added: ‘I was always told to regard our family with importance.’
Maddison’s great-grandfather Lord Mountbatten was assassinated in August 1979 when an IRA bomb went off shortly after he departed the fishing village of Mullaghmore in his boat.
