Advertisement

The Funny Way Princess Diana's Friend Keeps the Late Royal's Playful Spirit Alive for Prince George

Prince George and his royal siblings, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, will never meet their paternal grandmother, but Princess Diana's close friend is keeping alive her spirit through a playful tradition.

Julia Samuel appeared on the How To Fail With Elizabeth Day podcast, where she spoke about being a godmother to 6-year-old George — and her way of showing him Diana's sense of humor.

"I do to George what [Diana] did to us, which is give impossible toys that are really noisy and take a lot of making," Samuel said of celebrating the little royal's birthdays. "I come in slightly tipped by the size of the present that William then has to spend days putting together. And then put all the machinery together, and it makes awful tooting noises and lights flashing and all of that."

"That makes me laugh, and it makes George laugh," she added.

Samuel added that Prince George is "amazing" — "He's funny and feisty and cheeky and God she [Diana] would have loved him so much," she said. "That is heartbreaking for all of them."

RELATED: Princess Diana Spent Her Last Birthday Living Up to Her 'People's Princess' Nickname

Neil Munns/PA Images via Getty Princess Diana and Julia Samuel

The podcast was released on July 1, what would have been Princess Diana's 59th birthday, and Samuel said her favorite memory of the royal was "her laugh."

"She had an absolutely fantastic laugh. It was a sort of giggle and it was cheeky and it kind of lit up the room," Samuel said, getting emotional. "And also she was a fantastic hugger."

"By being as open and honest and vulnerable and authentic as she was, it changed the world and it certainly changed Great Britain," Samuel added. "She had an absolutely lasting effect on us."

RELATED: Kate Middleton Reveals Why Prince George Is 'a Little Grumpy' Thanks to Little Brother Prince Louis!

A.G. Carrick/Diana Memorial Fund/Getty Prince Harry, Prince William and Princess Diana

In the 2017 documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, William said he is "constantly talking about Granny Diana" with his children.

"We've got more photos up around the house now of her, and we talk about her a bit and stuff," he added.

"It's hard because obviously Catherine didn’t know her, so she cannot really provide that — that level of detail," he says. "So, I do [when] regularly putting George or Charlotte to bed, talk about her and just try and remind them that there are two grandmothers, there were two grandmothers in their lives, and so it’s important that they know who she was and that she existed."

The Duchess of Cambridge Prince William with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis

Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more!

However, William jokingly admitted that Diana would have perhaps taken to being a grandmother a little too well.

"She’d be a nightmare grandmother, absolute nightmare," he joked. "She’d love the children to bits, but she’d be an absolute nightmare. She’d come and go and she’d come in probably at bath time, cause an amazing amount of scene, bubbles everywhere, bathwater all over the place and — and then leave."