Indie
Jamie T reveals 3310 was almost inspired by 'saucy' King Charles’ leaked Tampongate phone call
Jamie T says his track 3310 originally drew on the infamous 1993 leak of King Charles’ intimate phone call with now-Queen Camilla, before he later rewrote it into a song about devotion and reassurance.
Jamie T has revealed that his song 3310 was nearly built around one of the most notorious royal scandals of the 1990s: the leaked phone conversation between King Charles and Camilla Parker‑Bowles in which the then‑Prince said he wished he could be her tampon.
The private call, recorded in 1989 and published by newspapers in January 1993, became known as “Tampongate” and dominated headlines for weeks.
Speaking to The i newspaper, Jamie explained: “It [3310] was originally based on something quite different. Do you remember in the ’90s that there was a recorded conversation that came out between Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles?”
The interviewer referenced the infamous moment in the call where Charles joked he wished he could be as close to Camilla as a Tampax. Jamie replied: “Yeah! Me and my friends were discussing it. My mate was like, ‘Oh my god, this is mental.’ I was like, ‘No, it’s quite romantic. He’s saucy, isn’t he?’”
Jamie said the conversation sparked ideas about obsession and longing.
He said: “It got me thinking about this whole idea of lust and obsession for someone. And wanting to be an inanimate object to them, anything to be close to them. So the song started off about that.”
But when he revisited the track - which features on his new album Ghosts (100 Days of Morning) - years later, he decided to shift the meaning.
He added: “When I came back to it years later, I wasn’t sure I wanted [to go with] that original idea. So I made it more about how I’ll always be there if you need me. Like the old Friends [theme].”
