...but Prince Philip defused the tension

Fiona O’Loughlin has revealed that she once dropped the F-bomb in front of the Queen and Prince Philip.

Ironically, the Australian comedian was trying to defuse a breach of protocol when she accidentally swore.

The incident happened when she and her husband Chris were at a reception for the Royal couple in Alice Springs in 2000, attended by 50 of the town’s great and good.

'I'm pretty sure my husband and I came in at 49 and 50,’ she told  Channel 9’s Today Extra. ‘We were the only two people that hadn't met her.

'I saw my husband break protocol and shake the Queen's hand. He said, "G'day, I'm Chris!" and I raced from one side of the room to the other... but I'd had a few glasses of "personality".

'I turned to a stranger on my left and said, "Did he just rhymes-with-duck up?" and Prince Phillip lent down and said, "Not as much as you just did, sweetheart!"’

Published: 6 May 2019