Princess Anne reveals why she doesn’t shake hands during royal walkabouts

Princess Anne is the only member of the British Royal who doesn’t shake hands during walkabouts, and she has a good reason for that. The Princess Royal has revealed she has only been keeping up with tradition, even if her family wouldn’t anymore.

In a sneak peek from the HBO documentary “Queen of the World” (via People), Queen Elizabeth’s 68-year-old daughter recalls why during royal walkabouts, wherein the family walk to the rows of cordoned-off crowd to greet them, she is the only one who doesn’t extend her hand.

“The theory was that you couldn’t shake hands with everybody, so don’t start. So I kind of stick with that, but I noticed others don’t,” she says in the video.

And while she doesn’t think there is something wrong with shaking hands with people, she just feels it makes things different than what it should be.

“It’s become a shaking hands exercise rather than a walkabout,” she says.

A narrator in the clip explains that the “public were lucky to get a fleeting glimpse of the royal family as they drove by” before. “Then in the 1970s, the Queen decided to shake things up. She wanted to say hello to the crowds and the walkabout was born.”

Anne isn’t also keen on interacting with people who hold gadgets over their heads.

“Phones are bad enough, but the iPads — you can’t even see their heads,” she says. “No idea who you’re talking to.

“I either don’t bother or just say, ‘Look, if you want to ask… I suggest you put that down,” Anne says. “It is weird. People don’t believe they’ve experienced the event unless they’ve taken a photograph.”

To be clear, Anne isn’t opposed to handshakes, just not during the walkabouts. She has shaken hands with different leaders and people around the world, so the gesture isn’t the issue for her.

HBO’s “Queen of the World” documentary will air on Channel Seven in Australia on a date yet to be revealed. It will air on Oct. 1 on HBO in the US.