The Traitors season 3 winner Ivar Mountbatten is gearing up to walk his eldest daughter down the aisle!
“I couldn’t be happier to announce the engagement of my eldest and most precious daughter Ella @ellamountbatten to her fabulous boyfriend Fergus @wright.fergus,” Mountbatten, 62, wrote via Instagram on Saturday, July 26, sharing a photo of the happy couple. “Ferg is not one to be rushed, so I am incredibly pleased that he has finally put us all out of our misery!”
He added, “I know he will look after my daughter to his dying day — they couldn’t be better suited. Enjoy this special time in your life. Much love to you both.”
Mountbatten shares daughters Ella, 29, Alexandra “Alix”, 27, and Louise, 22, with ex-wife Penelope Vere Thompson. After Mountbatten and Thompson divorced in 2011, Mountbatten publicly came out as gay. Mountbatten, a cousin of King Charles III, married James Coyle in 2018.
Mountbatten also shared a snap of Ella’s engagement ring on Saturday, revealing that her longtime boyfriend popped the question with a cushion-cut green diamond with a halo around it.
In response to Mountbatten’s joyful announcement, Alix jokingly took issue with some of his verbiage.
“Most precious daughter, ey?” Alix wrote in the comments section.
Mountbatten, however, was quick to soothe his second daughter.
“As you are too, darling!” he wrote back.
While Mountbatten’s daughters primarily live their lives far from the royal spotlight, the Traitors alum has long been a proud dad. In a June interview with Tatler, Mountbatten praised how his kids reacted to his coming out. (Mountbatten is the first openly gay member of the royal family.)
“I think they like having another man in the house,” he quipped. “Better than a stepmother who could have turned out to be a step-monster.”
Coyle also enjoyed bonding with the three young adults.
“It’s one thing that could have gone really badly wrong for the relationship. If even one of the daughters had been unhappy about it I don’t think it would have worked,” Coyle told Tatler last month. “We all get on incredibly well. I like to think they can confide in me. … This is the icing on the cake. I’ve got a husband and a ready-made family. Also Penny has been so open and kind about it. It has been lovely.”
Mountbatten, meanwhile, noted that his sexuality is seldom a topic of conversation with his royal relatives.
“They don’t really talk about it,” he added. “I mean, the royals, they don’t communicate very well.”
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