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Prince Harry Takes a Swipe at Trump on Stephen Colbert's Show — and Gets Booed By Crowd

Thanks to his life in Hollywood with Meghan Markle, Prince Harry has become a returning celeb on late-night talk shows, an evolution that would have seemed unlikely for a British royal not long ago. His surprise appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert this week proved that point, wherein he delivered a pretty evident jab at Donald Trump, going well beyond the festive theme of the show. 

Harry popped up on stage at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York, where Colbert was joking about the endless conveyor belt of royalty-themed Christmas films during his opening monologue. Joining in on the parody, Harry walked on stage and deadpanned, "I really thought this was the audition for the Gingerbread Prince saves Christmas in Nebraska." Of course, the audience laughed. What came next, though, was surprising.

The Duke of Sussex joked that he once had considered acting because he knew how 'obsessed' Americans were with royalty and holiday movies. Colbert brushed that aside, smoothly setting up for the next line, which is when Harry delivered his punchline, "Really? I heard you elected a king," pointing towards Trump, provoking a mixture of laughter and booes from the packed audience, who had stood all up when they saw the Prince take the stage. Harry was referring to the 'No Kings' protest in the US, which opposes Trump's 'authoritarian' policies.

Colbert, playing referee, waved off the reaction. "That's a fair point, no, he's got a point," he said, as the audience noise continued. Harry pressed on, referencing monarchy more directly, "And often making such a big deal about my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather George III," the British king at the time of the American Revolution. 

The Trump references didn't stop there. In a later exchange about what Harry would do to land a role in Colbert's fictional Hallmark-style movie, the Prince rattled off an absurd checklist: "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." The crack was directly aimed at CBS's recent $16 million settlement with Trump. In response, Colbert quickly shot back, “Hey, Harry, I didn’t do any of those things.” The Duke, without missing a beat, came back with, “Maybe that’s why you’re canceled,” drawing another wave of reaction from the crowd.

The US president accused the network and 60 Minutes of deceptively editing an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election. He called for the unedited footage to be released after Harris appeared to give two different answers on Israel in clips that aired across CBS platforms. Paramount eventually settled with Trump in July. Weeks later, Colbert's show was axed, a decision the host claimed was politically motivated rather than financial.

The joke carried extra bite given that Harry and Trump already share a frosty history. Over the past year, that entanglement became especially visible during the controversy surrounding his immigration status. In February, Trump floated the idea that the Spare author could face scrutiny for allegedly failing to disclose past illegal drug use on his visa application. He eventually backed off the threat. “I don't want to do that. I'll leave him alone. He's got enough problems with his wife. She's terrible,” Trump told the New York Post at the time.