How Zara & Mike Tindall built a £30m empire – and why there’s ‘no chance’ they’ll ever be working royals

ZARA and Mike Tindall have achieved something that makes them the envy of most in their family and set an example for future generations of royals, according to palace insiders.

As Zara’s cousin Prince Harry and his wife Meghan and numerous others have discovered to their cost, it is difficult for members of the Royal Family to make a living outside the Firm without being accused of cashing in on your connections with the monarchy.

Yet Zara, 43, and Mike, 45, have managed it, largely without controversy. Down to earth, in touch with ordinary people and their interests, and popular with a wide section of the British public, the couple are estimated to have built up a combined fortune of £30 million via a range of business ventures, sponsorship deals, and endorsements.

Their advisers insist they do not recognise that £30 million figure but whatever their true worth, the couple have amassed it without the kind of damaging criticism that other royals who have tried to mix official duties and business have done.

Of course, being related to the King and to the late Queen helps bring in the sponsors and others keen to associate their brands with them.

The couple, who met in a bar in Sydney through Zara’s cousin Prince Harry, have three children –  Mia, 10, Lena, six, and Lucas, three –and regularly join the Royal Family at Christmas and Easter and other Windsor clan gatherings.

“It can’t have been unhelpful for Zara that she is the daughter of the Princess Royal, the granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, and grew up on a 700 acre estate with horses and stables,” said longtime royal observer Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine.

Olympic comeback?

“If she wasn’t very good at the sport she might well have faced those sort of accusations of cashing in on her royal connections but she’s been a world and European champion and won a team Olympic silver medal. She’s done it herself.”

Her career in eventing may continue for many years yet and, although she did not make Great Britain’s Paris Olympic team this summer, it is still possible that Zara could make a return at future Games with the right horse.

“It’s a sport that people go on competing in when they are in their fifties and sixties. So anything is possible,” one friend said.

She has promoted high-end brands including Musto sailing, shooting and equestrian clothes, Land Rover, Rolex, and investment firm Artemis.

Mike’s new career

Former England rugby union captain Mike built his own sporting career too, playing professionally for Bath and then Gloucester and winning the 2003 World Cup with England during an international career in which he won 75 caps. Since retiring from the sport in 2014, he has developed a career as the co-host of The Good, The Bad & The Rugby podcast, launched a property management company, and started a drinks company with his friends James Haskell and Alex Payne selling Blackeye Gin.

Mike, who took part in I’m A Celebrity in 2022, has appeared in adverts for Domino’s Pizza and Amazon. He also earns cash from public speaking and other activities through another of his companies, Kimble Trading Limited.

He and Zara, who wed in Edinburgh in 2011, live in seven-bedroom Aston Farm on Princess Anne’s Gatcombe Park estate in Gloucestershire where they also have a private gym and a small home office.

When Zara competes, Mike often takes the kids and, unlike some of their relatives, the couple are relaxed about the children being photographed out in public, knowing that there will be photographers there accredited by the organisers.

Ordinary parents

The children too enjoy their sports and that increasingly takes up the couple’s time. “We’re no different to other parents and our weekends end up being about the kids and getting them to their sports,” Mike said earlier this year. “It’s a mixture of rugby, hockey, swimming, gymnastics.”

He and Zara like their days out at horse racing, darts , and other sports. Every January they fly out to Australia to go to the Magic Millions Raceday on the Gold Coast.

 But they have shot down reports that they are thinking about moving out to Australia and categorically denied claims that the King was trying to persuade them to stay in the UK. “Everyone keeps telling us we’re moving there but we’re not,”  Mike told Hello! magazine in June. “It’s so far away, especially when you have a big family.”

For the moment at least, it is steady as she goes for the couple. There has been speculation that they might be asked to take up official royal duties to support the dwindling number of working royals.

It came on the back of Prince William’s decision to invite them to help him host a royal garden party at Buckingham Palace in the summer along with some of his other cousins and their partners.

William, who loves joshing with the couple, is likely to do something similar again in future years but that would be the extent of it. According to sources close to William and the Tindalls, there is zero chance of Mike and Zara becoming taxpayer-funded royals.

There is zero chance of Mike and Zara becoming taxpayer-funded royals.

Source, close to couple

It is the same with Zara’s younger cousins, Edward and Sophie’s children Lady Louise Windsor, 20, and James, the16-year-old Earl of Wessex. “There’s no chance they’ll be working members of the family. They’ll be pursuing their own careers,” said Mr Little.

Prince Andrew’s daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie decided they wanted their own careers before they went to university. “There’s more to life than ribbon-cutting,” Beatrice once told me.

Britain’s monarchy, like those across much of Europe, is slimming down to just a handful of publicly-funded royals and that means younger members of the family will have to think about careers outside the Firm.

Will all three of William and Kate’s children follow the traditional path of going into the fulltime service of the country perhaps after a spell in the Armed Forces or will Prince Louis at least have the option of choosing another career?

Harry and Meghan’s children, Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three, will certainly be expected to pursue their own careers, making the decision to use those Prince and Princess titles hard to fathom.

“It’s inexplicable, given the circumstances and where they are in the world,” Mr Little said.

Zara and her elder brother Peter Phillips were never going to be a princess or prince because that was only on offer to the children of the monarch’s sons but Anne rejected the Queen’s offer of an Earldom to Captain Mark Phillips before she had Peter, who is now 46.

It meant there would be no titles for Zara or Peter and they seem to have thrived on it. Perhaps more royals in future will consider doing the same when they want a career.