Alex Claremont-Diaz

## Alexander Gabriel Claremont-Diaz

*"History, huh? Bet we could make some."* - Alex to Henry

## Biography

Alex Claremont-Diaz is the son of the President Ellen Claremont and Senator Oscar Diaz. Alex is the First Son of the United States and part of The White House Trio with his older sister June Claremont-Diaz and Nora Holleran. He is played by Taylor Zakhar Perez.

### Early Life

Alex was born to Oscar and Ellen, When he was in high school, He played lacrosse and he was co-captain of his team. He was student body president, honor roll AP student, prom king, and class valedictorian. Alex has an older sister, June, who is three years older than him, they share a very close sibling relationship and she is an important part of his life.

### Rivalry With Henry

The first time Alex saw Henry was when he was 12. He saw a J-14 magazine with 13-year-old Henry on one of the pages, and soon had a strange fascination with the image.

In the book, the rivalry between Alex and Henry began at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Alex was excited to finally meet Prince Henry— someone who he'd looked up to for years and wanted to emulate, charming and beloved by everyone—but Henry shook his hand with what Alex took as disgust, and told Shaan to "get rid of him."

In the film, their first meeting was at the first night party for the climate conference in Melbourne. When Alex approached Henry to introduce himself, Alex felt Henry looked at him "like [he] had head lice", then turned to Shaan and said what Alex thought was "get me out of here".

Not only that, but the media quickly began to compare the two boys. Alex felt as though Americans expected him to live up to Henry's reputation, which is not an easy feat when you're biracial and your mom is the first female president. Some articles went as far as to say that they wished Alex was more like Henry, and that he should change his friends and hobbies in order to be more like the prince.

In both the book and the film, Alex's first meeting with Henry left him fuming. In the book, one of the reasons was that not only was Henry was a constant reminder of how much more he'd be loved if he was whiter, but his perfect persona wasn't even *real.* The movie however only mentioned Henry's dismissal as the reason behind Alex's grudge. From then on out Alex loathes Henry. (Rafael Luna even teases Alex about having a 'dartboard of Henry's face on it' at his desk.) Alex's hostility leads to the $75,000 wedding cake toppling over when the boys argue.

With both the Palace and the White House needing good press, the incident sparks a contracted friendship arranged between the two men. During a trip to England for Alex to be seen with Henry, the two bond.

In the book, Alex stays at Kensington Palace with Henry, and in the middle of the night, while Alex is on the phone with Nora, Henry walks into the kitchen in the guest quarters. He's wearing PJs and is clearly shocked that Alex is awake, and tells him he's out of Cornettos and knew they'd have stocked up this fridge. He asks Alex if he's practiced what they're going to say tomorrow at the interview they're doing together, and Alex rolls his eyes and says of course he has, he's not the only professional there. Henry looks uncomfortable, and Alex takes a photo of Henry's hand, showing his signet ring and holding the Cornettos box. He posts it on Instagram and tags Henry, and tells him that not everything needs to be so complicated. Right as he's leaving to return to his own room, Henry says he didn't know Alex wore glasses.

They do interviews together the next morning, and Alex is even more irritated by the situation because he keeps noticing how attractive Henry is. It's an objective thing, though, nothing to do with Alex's personal tastes. Alex is as composed and professional as always in these interviews, which differs from the movie. (In which he makes many offhand jokes that would probably have gotten him in trouble.) Later, they're visiting a children's cancer hospital, and while they're there, there's suspected gunfire and the two of them are shoved into a closet together and fall on top of each other. It's too crammed to get up, so they're basically laying on top of each other while they argue, and eventually Alex asks Henry about *Star Wars,* which he'd been talking about with a little girl a few minutes beforehand.

They disagree over the best movie, and then Henry says that believe it or not children of the crown spend their time doing more than going to tea parties and junior polo league, and Alex asks why he pretends he's so boring then, if he likes normal things and not just snobby, basic stuff. Henry says it's none of his concern, and then Alex reminds him that they're going to have to pretend to be best friends for pretty much the rest of their life, or else people will realize the whole 'best friends' thing was an act, so that Henry might as well tell him now before it comes back to bite him in the ass later.

Henry asks why Alex hates him so much, and Alex reminds him about the Rio Olympics, where they'd first met. Henry apologizes and tells Alex that it's not an excuse for his behavior, but that his father had died 14 months before that, and he was pretty much an asshole everyday at that time of his life. Alex realizes that Henry picked the cancer ward because of his father—who had died from pancreatic cancer—and not because he wanted good press. It's the first time Henry seems like more than a two dimensional figurehead to Alex, and he tells Henry that he's glad to know he isn't just some perfect Prince Charming. They argue some more over *Star Wars* until Cash comes to let them out—it wasn't gunfire, just fireworks—and then Alex takes Henry's phone to put his number in. He says it'll be annoying to keep going through handlers if they have to keep this up, so just text him and they'll figure it out. Henry stares blankly at him, in shock, and Alex teases him about not using his number for booty calls.

However, in the movie , most of this is cut. While hiding in a closet during a children's hospital visit from suspected gunfire, Alex and Henry make amends. Henry explains that his behavior in the Melbourne Climate Conference was stemmed from his inability to grasp his father's death and not because of anything Alex did; he says Alex didn’t hear what he said correctly. He explains that he'd said "I need to get out of here" and the remark had nothing to do with Alex. They begin talking and even find out they have some common interests, this conversation led to their friendship and eventual relationship, as it was the first time Alex sees the real Henry.

### Friendship with Henry

In the book, Henry texts Alex first with a photo of Chief Chirpa from *Return of the Jedi* and says '*This bloke looks like you.'* Alex saves Henry's contact as *HRH Prince Dickhead💩* and replies a few days later. He sends Henry a photo from one of June's *People* magazines in which he's wearing swim trunks, and says *'you have a lot of moles. is that a result of the inbreeding?'*. Henry's reply comes two days later, with a screenshot of a news article that asks if Alex is going to be a father, captioned *'But we were ever so careful, dear.'*

Alex and Henry begin texting regularly, and Alex enjoys the quick banter of their arguments. He's so much all the time, but he doesn't care what Henry thinks of him, so he doesn't feel the need to hide that side of himself. Alex learns a lot about Henry over text, about Henry's sister, Bea, and they compare what it's like to have older sisters. Alex hears about Pez, Henry's best friend, who's a philanthropist and even more eccentric than Alex, and Henry's father, too. Alex sends Henry a 5kg package of Ellen Claremont for America campaign pins as a joke, and Henry tells him that Shaan almost called in the bomb squad.

##### The Great Turkey Calamity

Close to Thanksgiving, Alex finds out that taxpayer dollars have been paying for the turkeys for the presidential pardon to stay at a luxury suite the night before it happens. He begs his mother to keep them in his room, saying it's a gross misuse of government funds, and finally she caves. Later that night, when they're in his bedroom and he discovers a new fear he never knew he had, Alex regrets his decision. He texts Henry about it, and then Henry teases him about how terrifying they must sound. *"Yes, famously the most sinister of all animal sounds, the gobble."* Alex calls him to make him listen to it, and then realizes half a second later that he's never called Henry before. Henry asks incredulously if Alex has called in the middle of the night to make him listen to a turkey, and Alex says Henry doesn't understand how terrifying they are. Alex asks how to make them gobble, and Henry tells Alex to try gobbling at them first, to connect with it. It's only after Henry tells him to buy a summer home in Majorca with the turkey that Alex realizes it's a joke, and when he exclaims that Henry's an asshole, Cornbread the turkey gobbles at him. He screams and asks Henry if he'd heard, and Henry agrees that the sound is *'truly harrowing'.*

They keep talking and Henry reveals he'd been watching *Great British Bake Off* and wearing a sheet face mask. Henry reveals his dog, David, is named after David Bowie, and when Alex asks why not just call him Bowie, Henry says it's a bit on the nose. Eventually Henry tells Alex to go to bed, and that the Turkeys aren't going to Jurrasic Park him, and Alex reluctantly agrees, but neither of them seem to want to hang up first. A minute later, Henry sends him a selfie from bed, with his face pink and freshly scrubbed from the face mask, with David's snout on one side of his head and Bea's cat Mr. Wobbles on the other side, curled up around a Jaffa Cakes wrapper. It's captioned '*This is what I must endure. Good night, honestly.'*

At Christmas, Alex's parents get into a fight, and when Alex goes off on them and storms out, he ends up calling Henry. They talk for hours about Alex's parents and Henry's too, and after Henry tells Alex it sounds like he did his best, Alex realizes Henry's a really good friend. June comes in, then, interrupting the conversation, so Alex says goodbye quickly and hangs up, and doesn't correct her when she assumes he'd been talking to Nora.

### Romantic relationship with Henry

After weeks of increasingly frequent late night calls texts, it's time for the *Legendary Balls-Out Bananas White House Trio New Years Eve party* (or, more officially, the Young American New Year's Eve Gala,) that the White House Trio throws each year, which June invites Henry to. (And chastises Alex for not having done it himself.) Henry attends with his best friend Percy Okonjo, better known as Pez. As the night progresses, Alex and Nora, who in the past have had numerous bets on how quickly they could make the tabloids think they'd rekindled their relationship, share a platonic kiss at midnight. Henry sees this, becomes jealous, and flees the scene. Alex later finds him standing outside in the Kennedy Garden, acting rather melancholy.

After a drunken conversation about what they would do if they were 'just some anonymous person out there in the world', Henry alludes to wishing he could date Alex. Alex is so drunk that he doesn't understand what Henry is talking about, and Henry tells Alex he's as thick as it gets and kisses him. At this point, Alex has never considered men romantically, having assumed he was straight by default, and he's shocked because he likes it. By the time Alex processes what's happening, Henry is gone. This kiss sparks Alex's '*Quarter Life NATO Sexual Crisis'.* Henry stops responding to Alex's texts, but per his contract with the White House, he has to be there within a month for another event.

As with any issue Alex faces, he turns to school as a distraction. He pours himself into his political science major at Georgetown University, and asks his mother if he can start his campaign job early. This does not work for him, clearly, but Alex and Henry sort things out at the State Dinner in January, after Alex takes Amy's help to get Henry alone. Alex is furious with Henry for going out with a girl in their time apart, and shoves Henry up against a wall in the Red Room and kisses him. They make out for five minutes, before Amy tells them the time is up and they need to come back now. Alex tells Henry he needs to stay far away from him for the rest of the night or else he's going to do something he'll regret in front of the Prime Minister, but that at 10:00 that night Henry will come up to Alex's room so they can have sex. They give each other blowjobs, sparking their romance, and their trans-Atlantic clandestine hook-ups begin.

Alex makes a comment before Henry leaves his bedroom the night of their first hookup, and tells Henry that they can 'be whatever we were before, but with blowjobs'. Henry seems taken aback for a moment, but agrees. They hook up again for the second time at a charity polo match in Greenwich less than 2 weeks later, in the tack room, and then again in Paris at a climate convention. They get wine drunk together, and Alex wonders what the press will title the photos of them: just two bros hanging out in Paris? They fall asleep together for the first time in Paris, and when they wake up, Alex realizes he might be in things a little deeper than previously anticipated. Henry leaves Alex a list of cheese shop recommendations, and Alex thinks that he's got a solid handle on his personal brand.

Both Alex and Henry's birthdays fall in March, (Alex turns 22, Henry turns 23,) and on Alex's birthday Henry reschedules a trip to New York to that day to '*administer birthday floggings et. al.'* Henry brings a cupcake and champagne and eats the frosting off of Alex's chest on Alex's birthday. After this, Alex convinces Henry to download Snapchat, because they don't see each other for awhile. Henry mostly sends fully clothed thirst traps, but there's one he sends on a sailboat with the sun bright on his shoulders, and *'Alex's heart goes so fucking weird that he has to put his head in his hands for a full minute.'*

They talk everyday over text and when they have the time over the phone, and Alex learns a lot more about Henry's past. Henry hasn't opened up to Alex as much as Alex has the other way around, but Alex encourages him over the phone. *"I'm not...historically great at talking about thinks," Henry says. "Well, I wasn't historically great at blowjobs, but we all gotta learn and grow, sweetheart." "Wasn't?" "Hey!"*

Alex notes during this phone call that the nickname *baby* has become a thing, and he uses it, not above playing dirty to make Henry open up. Henry tells Alex about his family issues, (Powder Princess) and they talk about how even though they're the younger brothers, they still feel like they need to protect their sisters. He tells Alex about coming out to Bea when she'd been in rehab, and how he *'sat down next to her and cried and told her she wasn't allowed to kill herself because Dad was gone and I was gay and I didn't know what the hell to do, and that was how I came out to her'.* He also tells Alex how Queen Mary forbade him from acting on any 'deviant desires' and told him there were appropriate channels to maintain appearances if necessary, and then tells Alex all about his father.

Alex facetimes Henry a few weeks later, as a break from his insane workload on the campaign combined with his last week of college, (*'he's not sure why his migraine demands soothing images of Henry looking cozy and picturesque, sipping tea by a lush green hillside. He just hits the buttons on the phone.')* and Pez picks up the phone, with Henry who's in the drivers seat of a luxury car. Henry calls Alex his strumpet, and he *'looks fresh-faced and relaxed, all rolled up sleeves and soft gray linen,'* and Alex says he feels calmer knowing that somewhere in Wales, Henry got a decent night's sleep. Pez teases Henry about how they used to pine over Claremont-Diaz siblings together, *"it used to be all bottles of cognac and shared malaise and 'when will they notice us—'*, and says it's become terribly one sided since Henry took up with Alex.

In May, the Super Six (Alex, Henry, June, Nora, Bea and Pez) attend karaoke together in Los Angeles after a charity event. Henry and Alex have penetrative sex for the first time, and Alex realizes that he's falling in love with Henry. On July 6th, Alex goes to Wimbledon with Henry and Bea and sits with them in the Royal Box. After Philip makes a rude comment, Henry brings Alex to a private room, and they have sex. Alex asks Henry if they're doing it because of Philip, and when Henry confirms, he says *"great, fuckin' love doing things out of spite."*

A few weeks later, in July, the news about Rafael Luna's partnership with the Richard's campaign comes out, as Alex and the rest of his family are on their way to the DNC. Alex is staying with his sister at the Beekman hotel in New York, and goes down to the bar to try and drink away his troubles. Henry surprises him by showing up, and tells Alex that he was worried after he heard the news. Henry comforts Alex about Raf, and listens while Alex tells him that it feels like Rafael's choices change who he is. Henry tells him that he's good, and that most things are awful most of the time, but Alex is good.

In the morning Zahra shows up at the hotel to get Alex, because he's late. His phone had died, and when she bursts into the hotel room, she's shocked to discover Henry in it with Alex. (She'd presumed it was just some random girl that Alex hadn't had sign the proper NDAs at first). She tells Henry he needs to get back to London, and that nobody had better see him leave. She tells Alex that he needs to tell his mother, but that he can wait until after the DNC is over, because things are already so hectic and stressful.

Alex tells his mother about Henry, and she asks him if he feels forever about him. She says if he doesn't then he needs to cut it out, because this kind of thing will follow him forever if it gets out. He's fired from his job on his mother's campaign, and spends lots of time emailing Henry since he has nothing else to spend his time doing. Henry apologizes and says he feels like it's his fault Alex got fired.

A few weeks later, Alex invites Henry to his dad's lake house in Austin for Labor Day long weekend. Henry accepts, and while they're there, Alex solidifies his conclusion that he's fallen in love with Henry. When he starts to talk to Henry about their future, Henry gets freaked out and runs away from the conversation. It's late at night when they have the conversation, so he says he's going to bed, and when Alex wakes up, Henry is gone.

Henry ignores Alex's calls and texts for a week until Alex discovers a note written at the hotel they stayed at after the karaoke night in LA in the pocket of his kimono that reads *'Dear Thisbe, I wish there weren't a wall. Love, Pyramus.'* and it's the last straw for him. He uses his emergency credit card and books the next flight to London and shows up at Kensington Palace. At first, Henry's equerry, Shaan, refuses to let Alex in, but Alex screams up at Henry's window until Henry comes down and tells Shaan to let him in. They fight and Alex tells Henry that he loves him, and Henry admits he loves Alex too but says that doesn't change anything. Alex asks Henry to tell him to leave, and then Henry kisses him and they have sex. Neither of them know if it's goodbye sex or not, and when Alex wakes up in the morning, Henry is gone.

Henry comes in a few minutes after Alex wakes up, fresh from a run, and tells Alex that he's all in. He tells Alex that he doesn't know if he'll ever be allowed because of the crown, but he was talking to Philip—who's staying at Kensington with Martha for the week while their home at Amner Hall has renovations—and realized that while Philip is fine, Henry wants more than that for himself. He tells Alex that if he's willing to be patient, that Henry is willing to do whatever he can to make them work, and he gives Alex his gold ring, which a symbol for his duty to the Crown. Alex stays at Kensington for another night, during which Henry takes him to the V&A museum and shows him around, and then he goes back home to DC.

Four days later, photos of Henry and Alex at the Beekman hotel during the DNC leak to the press, and everyone decides the best course of action is for Henry to pretend like he's dating June, because they are in the middle of Ellen's reelection and a scandal like this could completely blow it. June and Henry have a fake date for the paparazzi, and afterwards, Alex and Henry meet in a car outside where June and Henry had their date. Alex knows that Henry struggles with his mental health and just how difficult this is on him, because previously Henry said he didn't want to lie about them anymore, and he comforts Henry the best he can. They kiss, and Alex thinks about how it's reckless, but they're in a car with tinted windows and thinks it should be fine.

At the end of September, Zahra wakes Alex up in the middle of the night telling that his emails with Henry have been leaked. They are full of details about both of their lives and everything leaked is extremely personal. Ellen asks Alex again, with no room left for indecision: does he feel forever about Henry? Alex realizes he's known the answer all along: yes, he does. Later in the day, after hours and hours in strategy meetings, Alex has a panic attack. Buckingham Palace goes on a communications lockdown, so he's unable to contact Henry. It isn't until the next day that Zahra is able to take Alex to London to see Henry, and while they're on the plane, she gets him on the phone for Alex. They talk for the first time since the leak, and both agree that they don't want to lie, that they want to come clean to the public and stop hiding. When Alex gets to the palace, Henry is clearly not doing well, and Alex feels like he doesn't know what to do.

He talks with Bea, and says he feels like Henry's not telling him something, and Bea tells him it's because Henry misses their dad. She tells Alex that when something as bad as that happens to someone when they're young, before they're fully done cooking, it rips down to the bottom of what you know how to feel. That it digs a new chasm, all the way to the lowest low, and that now, anytime anything bad happens, Henry's emotions don't just stop where they would've before; they go all the way down. She tells Alex that it's very important that he loves those dark parts of Henry just as much as the rest of him, because if he can't understand it then he won't understand Henry. Alex tells her that he does, and that he loves Henry with his dark parts, because of them, that he loves Henry on purpose. Bea says that means he'll do just fine.

The next morning, Philip comes into the room to try and berate Henry, and Henry tells him to fuck off and says he loves Alex. He says he'll abdicate if he has to, and that they have ancestors who did so to be Nazis so it would hardly be the worst thing anyone's ever done it for. Alex is shocked, and later, Princess Catherine comes to speak to Henry for the second time since the leak. The first time she'd just told Henry that she loves him and she wished he'd felt like he could've told her. She tells Henry that she's sorry she hasn't been there for him and that she's here to fight for them against her mother, Queen Mary. When they meet with the Queen, Catherine stands up to her mother and threatens her, saying that if she won't allow it then she'll take over her mother's title. Bea holds up a tablet with the news on it that shows hundreds of thousands of people gathering in support of them, swathed in rainbows and gathered all over the world, and Catherine gets up to pull back the curtains to reveal the front of Buckingham Palace. There are almost as many people there as there'd been for the royal wedding, all holding up signs in support of Alex and Henry. Queen Mary finally concedes, and neither Alex nor Henry can believe their eyes.

After, on the way to the airplane, Alex spots a mural of the two of them depicted as Han and Leia, which had been mentioned in their emails. He takes a photo of it and tweets it, with the caption *'never tell me the odds.'*

Henry is there the night Ellen wins reelection, and afterwards, Alex takes him on bikes to the house he grew up in in Austin, the key for which Alex is wearing on the chain around his neck, next to Henry's signet ring.

## Bonus Epilogue

The bonus epilogue (from the Collector's Edition of Red, White and Royal Blue) is written from Henry's point of view. After Ellen gets re-elected, Alex and Henry take the summer off to travel to Dubai, Lagos, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. Alex starts NYU Law that fall and rents an apartment a few blocks away from Henry's brownstone. They later move in together and get engaged.

After Henry abdicates, they both decide to move to Austin, Texas and get married. Alex, tired of his work at the law firm he had joined after his graduation which took up most of his time, was more than happy to settle down somewhere quieter.

## Physical Appearance

Alex is five feet eight and a half inches tall. His height is the subject of jokes and banter between him and Henry, including Star Wars references like 'a bit short for a stormtrooper'. His appearance is described with the features he shares with his sister, June, as both of them have the same round tips of their noses, thick, unruly brows and a square jaw which they inherited from their mother. He has curly hair and thick eyelashes. In the bonus chapter, he's described to have a 'Fibonacci's jawline', thick forearms and freckles on his cheekbones.

## All The Rest

Alex graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University with a bachelor's degree in government. He passed the LSAT with perfectly acceptable scores and was considering a law school in New York close to Henry's youth shelter, potentially NYU, so they could live together. Alex is Henry's official suitor.

In the film, Alex is a law student at Georgetown University.

## Trivia

* Alex loves lists - he makes them after almost every big event that happens as a way to try and understand the situation.
* Alex lives in the East Bedroom of the White House. It's on the second floor, across from the Treaty Room.
* The East Bedroom was previously Caroline Kennedy's nursery, Nancy Reagan's office, and Sasha Obama's bedroom.
* Alex's bedroom at his family's house in Austin was "stuffed with lacrosse trophies and piles of AP coursework."
* Alex keeps the key for his family's house on a chain around his neck.
* In the film, he gives Henry the key of his family's house in Austin.
* Per McQuinston's Twitter, Alex has ADHD, but had not been officially diagnosed during the events of the novel.
* Per McQuiston's Threads account, Alex was diagnosed shortly after he started law school after Henry encouraged him to see a therapist. McQuiston also stated that he should've been diagnosed sooner but "his parents (bless them) were too busy to notice when he was young."
* Alex was named after Alexander Hamilton (founding father of the United States) and Archangel Gabriel (patron saint of diplomats).
* He is allergic to dust, Tide laundry detergent and shutting the fuck up.
* His favorite *Star Wars* movie is *The Empire Strikes Back*.
* His Secret Service code name is Barracuda.
* His zodiac sign is Aries (his birthday is in late March, approximately 3 weeks after Henry's), and according to Casey's annotations, was born at 2:07 PM.
* His MBTI is ENTP and his enneagram is 8w7.
* The media likes to compare him to JFK, most notably for their charisma and their dedication to their country.
* His Hogwarts house is Gryffindor.
* He almost got a tattoo in 2018 when June and Nora were out of town for a week. Per McQuiston's Threads account, if Alex were to get a tattoo, it would be "something very small with sentimental meaning in a place the public would never get to see."
* The White House staff had to ban him from using TikTok.
* Per McQuiston's Threads account, his favorite vacation destination is Rio.
* Per McQuiston's Threads account, he wears his glasses near full-time by the time he is 25. He wears RayBans Clubmaster Optics in the Polished Red Havana frames.
* Per McQuiston's Threads account, Alex and Henry would consider starting a family in their 30's.