Plenty of royal couples have noticeable height differences, such as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, but Harry’s parents, King Charles III and Princess Diana, weren’t one of them. Of course, if you saw pretty much any staged photo of the two of them together, you’d think they were six inches apart — because that’s how the royal family wanted it to look. One user on X, formerly known as Twitter, shared four photos of the ex-couple, with three of them showing King Charles towering over the late Princess Diana. According to the poster, both parties are 5 feet, 10 inches tall. The Standard, a long-running British newspaper, confirms this. Thinking she was shorter is a false fact about Princess Diana that everyone believes.

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Walking through Heathrow airport, looking at royal pictures on the walls, reminds me how latent sexism can be.

They were both 5’10’ pic.twitter.com/qrY2i0bsAA

— Chris Markesky (@keskvox) November 4, 2017

So, why did the royal family continuously make it seem like King Charles was taller? To seemingly make Charles look more dominant in an outdated view of masculinity. Two biographies on the late princess, “Diana: The Untold Story” by Richard Kay and “The Lady Di Look Book: What Diana Was Trying to Tell Us Through Her Clothes” by Eloise Moran, claimed Diana initially didn’t wear high heels so as to not tower over her husband. But when their marriage seemed in jeopardy, that’s when Diana began wearing higher and higher heels from designer Jimmy Choo (via Business Insider). 

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In an article written for The Society Pages, Lisa Wade, who holds a PhD in sociology and is an associate professor at Tulane University, explained, “This effort to make Charles appear taller is a social commitment to the idea that men are taller and women shorter. When our own bodies, and our chosen mates, don’t follow this rule, sometimes we’ll go to great lengths to preserve the illusion.”

How do you make someone look taller than they actually are? It’s all about staging. For example, in one of the photos posted to X, King Charles III is standing behind Princess Diana on a set of stairs, making him appear much taller than her. Another option could have been putting Charles on an apple box — which is something typically used in movies to make people appear taller. Someone on X believed that’s what happened for at least one of the photos.

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William, Prince of Wales and Prince Harry definitely inherited their parents’ stature, with both British royals having height that towers over expectations. Prince William clocks in at a whopping 6 feet, 3 inches — something the future king accidentally used to expose President Donald Trump’s lies about his height. Moreover, William’s younger brother, Harry, is slightly shorter than him, standing tall at 6 feet, 2 inches.

Obviously, William and Harry’s kids are still growing, so it’s not clear yet just how tall each of the royal children will end up being, but it’s a safe bet Prince George of Wales, Princess Charlotte of Wales, and Prince Louis of Wales will be tall, since Catherine, Princess of Wales is 5 feet, 9 inches tall. Harry’s children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, may not be as tall as their cousins, since Meghan Markle stands at 5 feet, 6 inches.

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