Harry’s Dig At Trump Puts His Titles at Risk — and Leaves Charles in a ‘Diplomatic Chokehold’
A late-night cameo that started playfully has snowballed into something far more consequential for Prince Harry.
A late-night cameo that started playfully has snowballed into something far more consequential for Prince Harry. His jibe against US President Donald Trump on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert may have ripples spilling into Britain. What was supposed to be a harmless satire has once put Harry's royal titles in jeopardy and his father, King Charles, in an awkward diplomatic bind. There's a reason why British royals have to remain apolitical.
Royal commentator Tom Sykes, writing on his Substack, believes Harry misjudged just how much weight his words still carry. "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," he wrote. Though Harry stepped away from official royal duties, Sykes asserts his public identity is still inextricably linked to the institution he has left behind. "And here a royal prince is, on American national television, mocking a sitting US president," he stressed. "That leaves Charles in a diplomatic chokehold," he said; perhaps even undoing some of the royal buttering the state visit saw earlier this year.
The political satire was part of a bit about Hallmark Christmas movies, which saw Harry walk onto the stage to audition for a mock role of a ‘Gingerbread Prince.’ Playing the absurdity for laughs, he said, "Well, you Americans are obsessed with Christmas movies, and you're clearly obsessed with royalty, so why not?" When Colbert replied, "Hold on, I wouldn't say we're obsessed with royalty," Harry dropped the line that pivoted the room in an instant: "I heard you elected a king." It was a reference to the recent 'No Kings' protests in the US against Trump's authoritarian policies, eliciting mixed responses, some laughter, and some audible boos from the crowd. The boos may have well been directed at the sitting president, but we'll never know.
That chokehold, Sykes suggests, could soon force the monarchy's hand: "I think the monarchy now has no real choice," he said. "The titles must go, 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."
Harry's Trump dig was part of a broader comic riff that also aimed at the mechanics of American media and power. At one point, he joked he would do 'anything' for a festive movie role, saying, "I'll record a self-tape, I'll fly myself to an audition, settle a baseless lawsuit with the White House. All the things you people on TV do." It was pointed directly at Paramount, the parent company of CBS, which recently settled a lawsuit filed by Trump as it seeks regulatory approval for its proposed merger with Skydance Media.
This, barring the consequences for the Firm, also puts Harry at risk because his legal and immigration status has already been dragged into partisan crossfire. Sykes noted that allies of Trump have previously targeted Harry's US residency, including a lawsuit from the Heritage Foundation to force the Department of Homeland Security to release his visa records over questions of past drug use disclosures. "Harry knows his residency has already been dangled as a political cudgel," Sykes wrote. "Against that backdrop, his decision to publicly mock a famously thin-skinned US president feels almost self-destructive."
