Vanessa Feltz has said she believes there’s another side to the awkward ‘dear oh dear’ exchange between King Charles III and Liz Truss.
The prime minister has been relentlessly mocked after greeting the new monarch at Buckingham Palace on Thursday.
Cameras picked up the moment King Charles said to Truss: ‘Back again? Dear oh dear. Anyway’ after she entered the room and curtseyed.
Vanessa appeared on Thursday’s instalment of This Morning, where hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield played back the clip.
However, Vanessa defended King Charles’ reaction, saying she believed he was being empathetic rather than criticising her troubled few weeks as prime minister.
Since replacing Boris Johnson, who quit over a slew of scandals, Truss has been slammed for her leadership decision, including u-turning on a tax cut to the rich.
Vanessa explained she took the ‘oh dears’ to mean King Charles III had no idea what to say to Truss.

She went on to say that she didn’t believe he was ‘saying you are disgraceful’ to Truss but instead was saying ‘poor you.’
Vanessa added the exchange wasn’t ‘glacial’ and he was acknowledging Truss had had ‘a terrible few days.’
The 60-year-old also revealed she had a similar exchange with King Charles when she was going through a ‘horrible time in the tabloid press.’
She explained: ‘I just know that I’ve only been presented to him once in my life. and when I was he I was having a horrible time in the tabloid press and my marriage had just broken.
‘And he said when I was presented to him: “Oh dear Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa” like that. And it was very similar to [the exchange with Liz Truss].
‘Actually, I took it to mean he doesn’t really know what to say because it’s all so awful, but he’s gonna plug. I think it’s exactly the same, [acknowledging she’s having a] horrible time – he’s like: Oh dear.
‘I don’t think he’s saying, “you are disgraceful”, he’s saying “poor you”. That’s what I think anyway.’
This Morning airs from 10am on ITV on week days.