Expert Reveals Prince William's 'Rapid Blinking' Signal at Philip's Funeral — What Does That Mean?

The camera, as ever, was cruelly intimate at Prince Philip's funeral, with tight shots, long silences and a nation straining to read meaning into the smallest muscle twitch. Prince William mostly gave what the monarchy trains its members to give — stillness and the carefully blank face of a man performing grief on behalf of an institution.

During the April 17, 2021 service at Windsor Castle, one expert says William briefly clenched his teeth during the outdoor procession and later blinked rapidly inside St. George's Chapel, at a moment when Ecclesiasticus was being read. That is the observation, and everything after it is interpretation — sometimes insightful, often speculative and occasionally a Rorschach test for the viewer.

Rapid Blinking, Royal Grief and the Chapel

It is worth rewinding the scene, if only because international audiences can forget how loaded the setting is. St. George's Chapel sits inside Windsor Castle in Berkshire, a historic royal space used for major ceremonies, and on that day it also carried the extra, era-defining strangeness of pandemic rules and distancing. With only 30 mourners permitted under coronavirus restrictions, the images were stark, especially the queen seated alone.

Against that backdrop, celebrity outlet Nicki Swift spoke to Damali Peterman, Esq., a conflict resolution expert, lawyer, mediator and CEO and founder of BreakthroughADR, about what she noticed in William's demeanor. Peterman's first-glimpse assessment was blunt. 'First glimpse of Prince William ... stoic, serious expression like the rest of the royals,' she said. She also noted that the family members were not wearing masks outdoors, making it easy to see their faces.

Then came a detail most viewers would have missed without pausing and replaying. 'There was a shot of William clenching his teeth. The muscle jumping on the side of his face makes it clear,' Peterman said. She did not present it as a smoking gun, allowing that it could mean anything from 'trying to stay awake' to 'trying not to show emotion' or 'processing information,' adding that 'there is no way to tell with certainty [why William was doing so].'​

Inside the chapel, Nicki Swift reports, Peterman said William's 'rapid and frequent blinking' appeared during the reading of Ecclesiasticus. The complication, of course, is that William put on a face mask once inside, which makes any 'read' less confident, not more. Still, the eyes remained visible — and that is where Peterman lingered.​

What 'Rapid Blinking' Can't Prove

Peterman explicitly cautioned against turning body language into scripture. 'Body language is not a monolith,' she said, stressing there is 'no one way that is universal for everyone' and that each person has their own baseline, adding, 'I have no idea of what Prince William's blinking baseline is.'​

Even so, she offered a menu of plausible drivers. The blink rate 'could [have been] due to many things,' including 'trying to stay awake, trying not to cry, trying to focus, trying to maintain stoicism, [or] processing data.' Elsewhere in the same interview, she suggested it might reflect 'stress, nerves, or trouble,' while also allowing the less dramatic possibility that blinking changes can happen when someone is 'comfortable or relaxed.' That range — distress or relief, tension or calm — is precisely why this industry is so frustrating, as it can be interpreted in every direction without committing to anything falsifiable.

The moment also arrived in a wider family story that, by then, was already public. Prince Harry had told Oprah Winfrey, 'The relationship is 'space' at the moment,' describing a rift that hung over every shot of the brothers arriving, walking and taking their seats. So when Peterman later watched William and Harry speak after the service, she noted William's 'body language and walking stride was more relaxed,' and said it looked like 'no conflict between them.'​​

Peterman's final verdict was almost anticlimactic. William's eyes and overall body language 'did not reveal anything outside of the norm of what we have come to expect from the royals,' and she argued that was not surprising because he 'was born into a duty that was on full display during his grandfather's funeral.' Perhaps the real tell is not the blinking itself, but how desperately people try to turn a flicker of humanity into a headline, because the royal script rarely offers anything else.