By THANE BURNETT, QMI Agency
LONDON – Before little girls grew up imagining winning Olympic gold for their country, there was another British dream.
Of meeting their handsome prince. Falling in love. Getting married in a lavish ceremony, before standing waving on a Buckingham Palace balcony as tweeting bluebirds tugged the book closed.
Katrina Darling never really understood that fantasy.
Instead, raised well grounded in the economically constricted area of northeast England — gone is the era of a secure job in the local shipbuilding industry — Katrina followed a different path.
She took her clothes off for a living.
Two weeks after her 18th birthday, she started her own burlesque routine.
Her seamstress mom helped with the costumes — what little of them there is when it all comes down to nipple tassels and G-strings.
Her dad would drive her to the train station to get her to performances on time.
Her sisters showed up for support.
It was eyebrow-raising work. But it was entertaining work.
And it wasn’t ever pornographic. Just a very nudge-nudge wink-wink British risqué act that included an almost butt-naked rendition of God Save the Queen.
And it wasn’t really intended for wider eyes beyond the venues where she performed.
But then another British girl, Kate Middleton, took her place on the royal balcony. And a member of the British press started doing some digging, and realized the bride marrying the likely future King had a second cousin, once removed.
One who is a burlesque performer.
Katrina says she originally contacted Buckingham Palace to get some sort of direction on how to handle the exposure.
“They told me, if it was going to happen, it was going to happen,” she recalls of the coverage of her uncovering.
And it sure did happen. Katrina became a perfect storm for Fleet Street — ‘Kate Middleton’s raunchy cousin.’
Katrina says she originally never tried to profit off the distant blood ties, but what’s clear — under her union jack skirt and below the faux crown she wears on stage — is that at some point, the working class girl from the northeast decided there was opportunity in her family DNA.
“I mean, not many people can say they’re related to someone who is (married) to the future king,” she reasons, knowing her livelihood is linked to Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge.
The Dutchess has just been named to Vanity Fair’s international best-dressed list.
Later this month, you’ll be able to see 22-year-old Katrina fully undressed in Playboy magazine.
And she’s further preparing to try to capitalize on America’s love affair with her more famous cousin by appearing late this month in a ‘Royal Dream Tour’ that stops at the swanky Dream hotel in South Beach, Miami, and another in New York during fashion week. She wants you to mark your calendar, because as Catherine continues on her path, her cousin Kat plans to continue with her more working-class calling for years to come.
But would she trade places with Kate Middleton? No Katrina insists — despite what you may think — adding she wouldn’t want the public exposure.
She adds: “I wanted to grow up treating myself as a princess.”
In Sunderland, where she comes from, the locals are called “Makems”, and it’s pit slang that comes from the great ship building days when “we make ‘em and you take ‘em” was the proud motto.
Today, in northeast England, where they’re reinventing themselves, it’s not a practical dream to wait around for a prince to come along and take you away.
Far better to use what you came into this world with, take advantage of any opportunity, and make that work.
Thane.burnett@sunmedia.ca
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2012/08/02/20060206.html
The ballad of Kate Middleton’s raunchy cousin! | BlogsCanada.ca
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