Culture

Queen Elizabeth Is Single In Time For Hot Girl Summer And The Internet Has Memes

Condolences to The Queen. It's never easy losing your cousin and husband in the same day.

queen elizabeth single memes hot girl summer prince philip

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

Prince Philip’s death means that for the first time in 73 years, Queen Elizabeth II is now single.

On April 9, the Royal Family announced that the Duke of Edinburgh had “passed away peacefully” with a notice on the gates of Buckingham Palace and through posts on social media.

“It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen has announced the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” the statement read. “His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle.”

For most people, the news wasn’t too surprising considering Prince Philip just finished his longest-ever hospital stay of 28 nights, and was just shy of his 100th birthday. In fact, a long-running joke of the last few years has been that Prince Philip has actually been dead for ages.

But as the longest-serving royal consort in British history, some were still shocked by the news and flooded social media with tributes to the late Prince. This included British and Australian media, which were heavily criticised for glossing over the Duke of Edinburgh’s rampant racism over the years. For example, Australia’s own Channel 9 was slammed for dismissing Prince Philip’s most horrid and offensive lines as “embarrassing gaffes” and “clangers”.

While death is ultimately a pretty sad thing, there is no denying that Prince Philip wasn’t the greatest person when he was alive. He constantly said offensive things about women and people of colour, and he famously started “talking” to Queen Elizabeth when she was just 13-years-old and he was 18. Oh, and that’s not even mentioning that the pair are cousins, too.

So naturally, when Prince Philip died, along with mourning, there were also jokes.

The biggest takeaway to come from all the memes from the last weekend, however, is the fact that Queen Elizabeth is now single — just in time for Hot Girl Summer and for clubs in the UK to be opening back up following strict lockdown restrictions.

Hot Girl Summer is, of course, the self-empowerment movement coined by rapper Megan Thee Stallion, which she explains to be “women — and men — just being unapologetically them, just having a good-ass time, hyping up your friends, doing you, not giving a damn about what nobody got to say about it”.

“You definitely have to be a person that can be the life of the party, and, y’know, just a bad bitch,” Megan continued, which sounds exactly like what Queen Lizzie needs for herself right now.

While The Queen may have married Prince Philip at 21, the pair actually met when she was 13-years-old. This means for the first time in 81 years, Queen Liz is single and ready to mingle and the internet is stanning The Queen’s foray into Hot Girl Summer.

But it’s actually people on TikTok who are having the most fun with the idea of a newly single Queen Elizabeth — and it almost feels illegal to laugh at.

Taking it one step further, some have even started trying to shoot their shot to cut Queen Elizabeth’s Hot Girl Summer short, and hopefully snatch Queen Lizzie up for themselves.

Personally, I’m just excited to see Elizabeth Thee Stallion take over this summer.