Prince William: 'Do You Know Who I Am? I Do What I Want'
A book about Prince William claims he once yelled this at Kate: "Do you know who I am! No one tells me what to do. I do what I want." As the future King of England, he has a point.
Only a few people can get away with "Do you know who I am?" at any given moment in human history. World-famous one-names are shoo-ins. (Madonna, Cleopatra, Gilgamesh.) The President of the United States of America, sometimes. (FDR, yes. Dubya, no.) And, though the British empire and royalty in general are not the phenomena they once were, anyone destined to be the King of England gets grandfathered in to the "Do you know who I am?" club.
Anyway, I sort of doubt the veracity of this book, which claims to have an inside line on the fights Kate Middleton and Prince William had during their 2007 break-up (a time during which Wills supposedly hurled the "Do you know who I am" bomb as a defense for infidelity) because the monarchy in general—and the Wills-Kate relationship in particular—is good at closing ranks. Nonetheless, we should hope that this is the way Prince William dealt with the break-up:
The prince and his band of bar hopping buddies show up at Mahiki. "As the Rolling Stones classic You Can't Always Get What You Want blasted over the sound system, Wills waved his arms in the air and shouted, 'I'm freeeee!'" according to the book. "'Let's drink the menu.'"
...if only because having a balding frat boy as King of England would be perhaps the final blow to taking "British monarchs" of the ol' "Do you know who I am?" list. [NYP, Observer, Official royal portrait via Getty]