On Wednesday evening, Prince Harry appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The Windsors had no warning, which means the royal reporters had no warning. Which means the right-wing press in the UK and America had no warning either. And they were ALL furious about it. Furious that Harry was charming and cute, furious that he did a funny skit about Hallmark Christmas movies, and furious that Harry “went nuclear on Trump.” That was the Daily Beast’s headline, “Harry goes nuclear on ‘King’ Trump in Colbert Interview.” It wasn’t an interview, it was a skit written by Colbert’s writers. The nuclear and hyperpolitical statement was as follows. Harry: “Well, you Americans are obsessed with Christmas movies and you’re clearly obsessed with royalty, so why not?” Colbert: “Hold on, I wouldn’t say we’re obsessed with royalty.” Harry: “I heard you elected a king.” Harry also got a good crack in there about CBS’s settlement with Trump (but few people are talking about that).
So, now, obviously, people are screaming, crying and throwing up about Harry’s highly political speech and how dare he call Trump a king, even though Trump actually loves it when people call him a king, a fascist, and an authoritarian. Like, Trump does not care whatsoever. He takes pride in it. Which is why I thought Harry got away with saying it – it wasn’t actually some highly critical political speech, it was a joke based in truth about how Americans voted for that orange f–ker who acts like a king. But according to Tom Sykes via his Royalist Substack, this is truly the dumbest thing Harry has ever done. Come for the insider knowledge of Harry’s affection for Colbert and stay for Sykes pushing Reddit conspiracies.
I believe Harry thought he was being funny, but this was hardly the venue to be plunging headlong into America’s defining fear of the moment: creeping authoritarianism. This at a time when the Trump administration is reportedly cancelling visas for people who merely criticize conservative influencers, a moment when political deviation — even trivial deviation — can be treated as grounds for removal.
Harry, of all people, should understand the danger of playing in that space; he has been threatened with deportation himself. Trump’s allies have openly tried to weaponize his drug use disclosures in Spare to force the release of his visa records, arguing he should never have been admitted to the United States. Harry knows his residency has already been dangled as a political cudgel. Against that backdrop, his decision to publicly mock a famously thin-skinned U.S. president feels almost self-destructive.
His friends tell me he did the show out of affection for Colbert — a man the royals cannot stand after he repeated false claims about William’s alleged affair for which he was later forced to apologize — and that Harry believes he’s free to speak his mind now that he’s no longer a working royal. I think if he were truly living as Harry Wales, private citizen, that argument would hold water.
But he isn’t Harry Wales. He’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. And in the American imagination, he still carries the full aura of a prince — a representative of the monarchy. A global audience does not grasp that Harry isn’t still a part of the Windsor family business. Charles and William may be hundreds of miles away in Balmoral or Windsor, but in the American mind they are standing just offstage as Harry delivers his punchlines.
At the Sandringham Summit Harry and Meghan vowed to uphold the values of Her Majesty. At its most obvious, that seem to entail keeping out of politics, and protecting the Crown’s apolitical stance. And here a royal prince is, on American national television, mocking a sitting U.S. president. Most viewers aren’t parsing the nuanced distinction between working and non-working royals. They simply see a British prince insulting their head of state. That leaves Charles in a diplomatic chokehold.
I think the monarchy now has no real choice. The titles must be removed, not as punishment, but for clarity. Removing them draws a clear blue line between Prince Harry the royal and Harry Windsor the private citizen. It protects the monarchy from his volatility. It frees Harry from expectations he clearly rejects. And it stops the public assuming he speaks for an institution he keeps undermining. I have led reporting that William has been considering this step; after last night, I think that window has become a doorway.
Harry must know conspiracy theories will now ignite again on Reddit — that he’s trying to get himself deported, that he wants out of California, that he’s manoeuvring toward some dramatic exit. It’s nonsense, of course, but he makes this nonsense easy to believe.
He either doesn’t understand the danger he walked into last night, or he simply no longer cares, having developed a craving for the spotlight and for applause that overwhelms caution, context, and even self-preservation.
“Harry went on Colbert” = Harry’s titles must be removed! “Harry joked about Americans voting for a king” = Harry is trying to get deported! In recent months, it’s been very curious to see the whole “Trump should deport Harry” story completely disappear. Right-wingers on both sides of the Atlantic were trying to make it happen for three whole years, but when Trump was asked about it directly, he said he wasn’t interested in deporting Harry. It will be interesting to see if this turns into something though – there are a lot of political operatives with some kind of vested interest in destroying Harry and Meghan.
Also: “Charles and William may be hundreds of miles away in Balmoral or Windsor, but in the American mind they are standing just offstage as Harry delivers his punchlines.” LMAO. Americans are not clutching their pearls, crying “what would the king think of this???” And this was a funny aside as well: “Colbert — a man the royals cannot stand after he repeated false claims about William’s alleged affair for which he was later forced to apologize.”
Screencaps courtesy of CBS/Late Show.
