Michelle Obama has given royal-watchers a sweet insight into the relationship with the British royals - particularly the late Queen.
During an interview with US chat show host Conan O'Brien, the wife of former US president Barack Obama revealed that she once received a surprise invitation to tea during a family holiday to London with her mother, two daughters and their godmother.
© Getty"We just went for a regular trip and Her Majesty heard that we were there and invited us over," she said. "This is how kind she was to our family. They said, 'Just come by. Her Majesty wants you to see the palace.' Nobody was there."
Elaborating further, she added: "We're sitting just in some room in the Palace and who comes down to greet us but Her Majesty, just with her purse in her house. "And I was, like, 'You do carry that purse everywhere'. You wanted to be, like, 'Where are you going - you're at home?' It's with her everywhere."
She continued: "The Queen showed us the gold room. There is a room full of gold. Everything in the palace was, like, 'This is what we were trying to do in the White House'."Our rose garden was, like, 'meh'. We were in a buggy riding through the roses forever. I was, like, 'Now, this is a rose garden.' She let the kids sit in her car. We were there for, like, an afternoon."
Michelle and her husband Barack met Queen Elizabeth for the first time in April 2009 almost a year after taking office.
Royal and political watchers around the world had their eye on the special occasion which saw the Queen "break protocol" for the first time in a number of years when she and the first lady shared a small embrace.
In the book, by Barack's former national security advisor Ben Rhodes, titled The World as it is: A Memoir of the Obama White House, the former US president was full of admiration for the Queen. Ben wrote that Barack said: "I really love the Queen. She's just like Toot, my grandmother. Courteous. Straightforward. All about what she thinks. She doesn't suffer fools."
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