William & Kate's New Family Crisis

An emergency school meeting is called after students bully Prince George

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge live a life of luxury and privilege. But they still realize it’s important for their three children, especially eldest son Prince George, 8 — the future king — to understand that life isn’t all servants, curtsies and deference. “I want George to grow up in a real, living environment,” Prince William has said. “I don’t want him growing up behind palace walls. He has to be out there.” And he is: Since 2017, George has been a pupil at Thomas’s Battersea, a posh private school in London that costs roughly $50,000 a year in tuition alone for him and little sister Princess Charlotte, 6.

But in recent months, George’s environment has gotten more real than William, 39, and Kate, 40, bargained for. At a time when the royal family is dealing with multiple scandals — from Prince Andrew’s Feb. 15 multimillion-dollar settlement with a woman who alleges he sexually assaulted her at 17 to Prince Charles’ ongoing cash-for-honors charity investigation — the Cambridges are facing a new drama on the home front. “There’s a group of kids at George’s school who bully and pick on him,” a source tells In Touch. “They treat George differently, mock him and exclude him.”

HURTFUL BEHAVIOR

The taunting has been relentless. “Some of the kids,” says the source, “think George gets special treatment from teachers and everyone else at the school. So students will shun him. A few have even had birthday parties and made it a point to not invite him. Then they’ll rub it in afterward by telling him how amazing the day at the escape room or theme park was. It’s so cruel.”