Princess Anne Is Still the Sassiest Royal Around, and These 7 Facts Confirm It

If you do ever meet Anne, don't try to shake her hand. In one of our favorite royal admissions of recent years, Anne tells Queen of the World that it's a no-no for her, explaining that when walkabouts first started, "The theory was you couldn't shake hands with everybody, so don't start." Anne admitted, "I kind of stick to that" . . . and alluded to the younger royals by adding, "But I notice others don't."

We're not done with the royal sass yet! The princess even confessed that she finds shaking hands "patently absurd." OK, we get it. Anyone offering a handshake to this princess needs to be ready for the fallout.

You'd think a royal would be so used to having their photo taken that they wouldn't even notice the cameras or cell phones, but not Anne — and she's not going to hold back if she finds your iPad in her face. Giving us a princess's eye view of a royal engagement, she says that sometimes the wall of tablets lined up for photos means "You can't even see their heads — no idea of who you're talking to." She added, "I either don't bother or just say, 'If you want to ask me something, I suggest you put that down.'"

While royal children always look polished at public engagements, Princess Anne reveals it can be a long way from reality. There's no pretending from this princess that she was a perfectly behaved kid. Instead, she admits that on her first voyage on the Royal Yacht Britannia, it took a team of nannies to stop her and her older brother, Charles, from toppling overboard, as they got a little too excited about being on the ocean waves.

We're always charmed when Prince Charles calls the queen "Mummy" in public, and we just might have melted when Harry mouthed, "Thank you, Pa" to the Prince of Wales on his wedding day, but don't expect Anne to do anything similar anytime soon. In Queen of the World, she refers to her parents as "the Queen and the Duke," which is fabulously formal and just so very like Anne.

One of the goosebump-inducing surprises of the latest royal documentary is the chance to see previously private royal home videos. But while we couldn't help sighing over the never-before-seen movies, Anne was taking it all on the chin. If you want misty-eyed and emotional, you'll need to find another royal. This princess allows herself a wry grin as she watches her younger self ripping it up as a child before making the very sensible observation that keeping youngsters busy is the key to success. The word "practical" was made for this princess.

What's not to love about a royal so self-deprecating that they admit on camera that they have always been "the backup?" Anne talks openly about going on tour as a teenager with the queen and Prince Philip to learn how to be a fully fledged royal. Charles was in training, too, and Anne admits, "You always assumed that they weren't cheering us." In fact, she describes her role as taking up the slack. And she admits that it was "much harder than you think." She clearly got the hang of it quickly. Anne, at 68, is still the busiest member of the royal family, year on year. That's the kind of backup everyone needs.

This glimpse of royal life is all about the queen passing on the baton to the younger generation, but her sassy daughter isn't sure the new royals on the block are having the easiest time.

Anne reveals that she wouldn't want to be making her first footsteps into the regal world now, especially when it comes to meeting and greeting the public. She thinks modern walkabouts are more "handshake exercises" and questions whether the new way of doing things is really best. And when we say "question," we mean she basically says they're getting it a bit wrong. Sassy at its finest.