When Rihanna showed Prince Harry around her home country,
their interactions with the locals got way spicier than anyone expected. And that's not
the only time things have gotten really awkward between the Sussexes and celebs.
As soon as Meghan Markle's relationship with Harry became public knowledge, the British
media started using her fresh face to spice up its coverage of the royals. In the book Revenge:
Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors, royal biographer Tom Bower
claimed that the Sussexes became paranoid that some loose-lipped members of their inner circle
were leaking information to reporters. They were particularly suspicious of Victoria Beckham. Her
husband David denied the accusation when Harry called him, but the damage was already done
It was a 2017 report by The Sun that raised Meghan's suspicions. The piece
in question was a seemingly innocuous account of Victoria giving Meghan some recommendations
for facialists and salons in London. As a source explained to The U.S. Sun in 2020,
"It later turned out the leak probably came from a beauty salon."
According to the insider, this misunderstanding led to tension for a while, but everyone
eventually patched things up well enough for the Beckhams to attend Harry and Meghan's wedding.
During a March 2023 episode of Watch What Happens Live, Rebel Wilson discussed the
time that she introduced her mom to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. It was at a polo match
in Santa Barbara, California in 2022, and it wasn't exactly the most comfortable moment.
"Met Harry, could not have been nicer. But then, Meghan was not as cool."
"Oh, really?" "She wasn't as naturally warm."
At the time of the meeting, Wilson had recently cracked a joke about
Harry while hosting the BAFTAs. As she quipped during the show,
"From drama to horror to fantasy, Harry and Meghan's interview with Oprah had it all."
However, Markle's iciness may have been unrelated to the joke,
as Wilson's mother wasn't exactly on her best behavior.
"And then my mom, being Australian, just asked her all these, like, slightly rude questions."
"Like what? What was she asking?" "Like, 'where are your kids?'"
Wilson was sympathetic to Markle, as she finds this type of questioning to
be a form of mommy-shaming, which she too has experienced since becoming a
mom herself. As she put it during an appearance on the Life Uncut podcast,
"I was shocked at the criticism because Chris Hemsworth goes to the gym,
[and] people aren't yelling, 'Where's your kids?' But why do they do it to every woman?"
When Andy Cohen appeared on Meghan Markle's Archetypes podcast in November 2022,
he learned that she was a Real Housewives fan during her time on
Suits. She even tried to get booked on Watch What Happens Live but got turned
down. Cohen admitted that this was a big mistake. As he put it,
"It is now the biggest blunder in the 13 years of the show."
Cohen had to make another embarrassing confession, as he didn't remember meeting Meghan twice before.
The first time happened before Suits was even on the air. She approached him at an event and
began excitedly chattering away. Looking back, Cohen was worried that he behaved regrettably,
but Meghan laughed and assured him that he had nothing to worry about. Cohen later
addressed the podcast conversation during his SiriusXM show Andy Cohen Live, as he admitted,
"It's compelling and awkward."
When Margot Robbie encountered Prince Harry at Suki [SOO-kee] Waterhouse's housewarming party
in 2016, she wasn't exactly starstruck. As she recalled to Jimmy Fallon during
an appearance on The Tonight Show, she dropped something outside the house, and Harry helped
her look for it. But at the time, she had no idea that a prince had come to her rescue.
Later, Robbie hopped in a photo booth with a group that included her good pal Cara Delevingne,
as well as Harry, whom she still didn't recognize. As Robbie put it,
he left his crown at home, thereby making it more difficult to identify him as royalty. He was,
however, sporting some eyewear that made him look like someone else.
"Actually, when I saw him in those glasses, I was like, 'Oh my God,
I didn't know Ed Sheeran was at the party.' And he got really offended."
"Oh no, he did not!" "He was like, 'Shut up!'"
But Harry apparently got over being mistaken for his fellow redheaded
Englishman. Robbie later obtained the Duke's phone number, and, as she revealed to Extra,
"He's pretty quick on text actually. Unlike me — I write
back four days later, weeks later sometimes."
When Prince Harry met Neve Campbell at a party in London,
he didn't creep her out by asking if she liked scary movies, but he did
leave her a bit flummoxed. As she recalled on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast,
"We had a little dance, and he told me that he grew up with a poster
of me on his wall. I was like, 'Where? In Buckingham Palace?'"
Harry later invited the star of Scream to a charity event and was apparently eager to
chat with her again. She brought along her partner, British-American actor JJ Feild,
and naturally planned to sit beside him. Her royal host, however, had other plans. As she recounted,
"Some older gentleman came up to me and told me that I was being seated next to Harry."
This placed Feild in a somewhat uncomfortable position, but, as Campbell recalled,
"JJ's a Brit, so he was like, 'Okay, whatever. I know how to do this game.'"
And so, Feild respected the prince's wishes and accepted a different chair elsewhere. Sadly,
though, Campbell didn't spill any details about what she and Harry talked about.
When Beyoncé met Meghan Markle and Prince Harry at the U.K. premiere of The Lion King in 2019,
she'd already paid tribute to the Duchess of Sussex more than once. Earlier that year,
she and Jay-Z filmed their BRIT Awards acceptance speech in front of a painting of Meghan wearing a
crown. The Carters later posed for a photo in front of the same painting.
Beyoncé shared it on Instagram along with a message for Meghan, with the caption reading,
"In honor of Black History Month, we bow down to
one of our Melanated Monas. Congrats on your pregnancy! We wish you so much joy."
During The Lion King premiere, the Sussexes warmly greeted the Carters. They then
struck up a conversation with the movie's director, Jon Favreau, with Harry quipping,
"Next time, anyone needs any extra voiceover work, we can make ourselves available."
And then Meghan added,
"That's really why we're here, to pitch."
Part of that exchange was witnessed by Beyoncé, who scratched her nose,
laughed, and looked away. Some observers believed that Beyoncé's body language
indicated that she was experiencing secondhand embarrassment. Nevertheless,
Markle later got her own Disney gig by narrating the 2020 nature documentary Elephant.
When country singer Mickey Guyton's parents joined their daughter at Super Bowl LVI in February 2022,
they didn't expect to bump into a British prince. Guyton was performing the national anthem,
and she wasn't with her folks when they met Prince Harry and posed for
some photos with him. The singer later recounted to Entertainment Tonight:
"My mom was like, 'Man, does anyone tell you, you look like Prince Harry?'"
Harry attempted to make a dramatic reveal by removing the hat he had on,
apparently believing that this would make it obvious that he was the real deal. But Guyton's
mom still didn't realize the truth until her daughter was able to set her straight.
Guyton also got her own photo with Harry,
and she even made an effort to make him feel like he was back home with
his family and all of their protocol about the proper way to greet royalty. As she tweeted,
"I met Prince Harry. He was just lovely. I even curtsied in my track suit."
Idris Elba is an accomplished thespian who has won over legions of fans in a variety
of major movies and TV shows. But while he's used to being offered a motley assortment of
acting roles, Prince Harry managed to leave him flabbergasted with a once-in-a-lifetime
job offer. As the actor recalled on an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show,
"He goes, 'Would you DJ at my wedding?’ I was like,
'Is this a joke? Are you joking?' And then he's serious."
But even if Elba had wanted to say no, how could he turn down such an important royal
request? Ultimately, he took the responsibility of keeping the dance floor packed very seriously.
"They're good friends and I wanted to make sure they had a great time,
so it was a lot of pressure."
Harry's request also meant that Elba would have to field endless questions about the nuptials. When
ET Canada asked him in 2023 who really cut a rug at the reception, he responded,
"Meghan was the one that was really letting it go.
She just had a lot of fun. It was her wedding, so she had the greatest time."
According to Meghan Markle, Ellen DeGeneres convinced her to make a life-altering decision,
although the talk show host has no recollection of their encounter. During a 2017 interview
with Reader's Digest Best Health, Meghan shared a detailed anecdote about running
into DeGeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi at an animal shelter. As Meghan recalled,
"Ellen goes 'Is that your dog?' And I said, 'No.' And she's like, 'You have to take that dog.'"
Meghan claimed that DeGeneres even pressured her to think up a name on the spot, which she did:
Bogart. As DeGeneres was leaving, she even returned to the window to demand
one final time that Meghan adopt the dog. The pressure paid off for Bogart,
who got to go home with the future duchess.
The following year, DeGeneres brought up this story during an episode of her talk show,
though she claimed to her audience that she didn't remember any of it. Still,
she argued that she deserved an invite to Meghan and Harry's wedding for ensuring
that Meghan became a dog mom. DeGeneres suggested that without the love of a loyal
canine companion, Meghan would've gone on a downward spiral by losing
her job and becoming a criminal with no hope of meeting a prince. As the host then quipped,
"So, I saved her life."
Members of the royal family are often accused of breaking protocol when they hug members of the
public. But when Prince Harry met education activist Malala Yousafzai during the We Day
charity event in 2014, he apparently didn't realize that her Muslim faith has strict rules
about physical contact. As Craig Kielburger, the event's co-founder, recalled to Hello! Magazine,
"Prince Harry put his arm around Malala for a photo and very loudly in the corner
Malala's mother in Urdu shouts, 'No, no no,' which translated to,
'Not unless you marry her can you touch her.'"
Harry's face then turned as red as his hair. Yousafzai was also reportedly visibly mortified,
and she and Harry took care to avoid any physical contact at all as the photo was
taken. The two of them met again in 2020, this time along with Harry's wife, during
International Day of the Girl. Harry didn't have to worry about making a similar mistake this time,
as the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to have a virtual conversation. They had clearly put
any awkwardness behind them as they discussed the importance of ensuring that girls have access to
education. But Malala did manage to make Meghan laugh by coming at Harry with her biting wit.
"I think it takes boys slightly longer to understand how important education is,
but they get there in the end."
There was something holding Shawn Mendes back when he got the opportunity to meet Prince Harry and
Meghan Markle. The royal couple never even knew that the pop singer endured an excessive amount
of anxiety at their expense when he performed at Queen Elizabeth's 92nd birthday bash in 2018. He
later described what happened when he stopped by The Ellen DeGeneres Show. As he recalled,
"This is going to be my biggest regret forever. I was walking down the halls,
and I see them in one room."
Mendes thought that striking up a conversation with Meghan would be easy. For one thing,
he mistakenly believed that she was Canadian like him, possibly because she lived in Toronto while
filming Suits. But he didn't get a chance to even make that mistake anyway. As he admitted,
"I walked in with this confidence, and the second they kind of felt me coming,
I just turned around, and my body went numb. I've never been so starstruck like that."
"Usually, I don't freak out like that, but I was, really,
I was surprised by how nervous I got in front of them, so yeah."
Before all that, Mendes had already survived an even more uncomfortable encounter with the queen,
as she didn't acknowledge his presence backstage. As he revealed,
"You're not allowed to speak to her unless she speaks to you first,
so it was like this [...] 10 minutes of just awkward silence [...] It was super weird."
In 2016, Prince Harry enlisted Rihanna's help for the noble cause of encouraging
people to get tested for HIV. Harry was in the pop star's home country of Barbados when
he hastily arranged for the two of them to get tested together for World AIDS
Day. The goal was to demonstrate how quick and easy the process is. He'd reportedly
discussed the idea with her just one night prior after meeting her at a concert.
The British prince and the pop princess also toured part of the capital of Bridgetown together.
They were joined by an HIV counselor, who told them some of the locals' favorite myths about
the sex lives of royals, one of which is that they just don't have sex. Harry tried to steer
the conversation in a more safe-for-work direction by asking if they also believe
that royals have blue blood. But instead of receiving an answer, he had to stand there
with Rihanna and hear another myth about how the royals don't have oral sex either.
That sounds plenty embarrassing, but we're guessing that Harry's face was
even redder in 2018 when Rihanna shared her expert advice on what he and Meghan Markle
should wear on their wedding night. As she told Entertainment Tonight,
"You could do whatever you want. It depends on how savage you wanna be."
When you play a member of the royal family on Netflix's The Crown and then encounter an actual
royal, it must be nerve-wracking, especially when the royal is loyal viewer Prince Harry.
"Do you fact-check it while you watch it?" "Yes, I do, actually."
But as Harry revealed during a 2021 appearance on The Late Late Show,
he doesn't mind how the show exercises artistic license with the lives of his
family members, as it still manages to capture the essence of royal life.
"I am way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing the stories
written about my family or my wife or myself."
Harry is so cool with the show, in fact, that he even had a little bit of fun with
one of its stars. Matt Smith played Harry's late grandfather, Prince Philip, on Seasons One and
Two, and he learned about Harry's viewership in an unforgettable way during a polo match.
"And he walked up to me and he went, 'Granddad.'" "'Granddad'? That's what he said?"
"Cause he'd watched the show. He'd watched the show."
Smith also revealed that a friend of his once asked the real Philip if he watched the show.
"'I have to ask, have you watched The Crown?' And apparently turned
around to him and went, 'Don't be ridiculous!'"
What makes a diva? Is it all about over-the-top demands,
or is it more about the ability to sing like nobody else? According to Mariah Carey it's
all about how you wear the word. As she declared to The Guardian in 2020,
"You think in the grand scheme of things in my life that really matters to me,
being called a diva? I am, b-----s, that's right!"
But while Carey is a diva and proud of it,
it got a little awkward when she tried to apply the same label to
Meghan Markle. As the pop star put it during an appearance on Markle's podcast Archetypes,
"You give us diva moments sometimes, Meghan."
Meghan then shared her reaction to that remark by explaining to her listeners,
"It stopped me in my tracks [...] I started to sweat a little bit. I started squirming in my
chair in this quiet revolt, like, wait, what? No, what? How? But? How could you? That's not true."
Meghan revered Carey, and the idea that her idol might view her in a negative light was
devastating. Luckily, Carey saved the duchess from a sleepless night by explaining that her
idea of a diva is someone who is poised, confident, and stylish. As she tweeted,
"Yes! I called her a diva, in the most fabulous, gorgeous, and empowering meaning of the word!!!"
When they voiced Timon and Pumbaa in 2019's The Lion King, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen
got to be best friends with royalty. But they later learned that properly greeting Prince
Harry and Meghan Markle wasn't as simple as offering them a rotten log teeming with tasty
bugs. During an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Eichner revealed that preparing to meet the
Sussexes at the London premiere of the movie was a bit like studying for a stressful test.
"What makes you nervous is that, in the days leading up to it, they email you a protocol."
"Oh."
"Of how you're supposed to greet Prince Harry and Meghan."
Eichner and Rogen also wondered what would happen if they didn't
follow protocol when meeting the Sussexes.
"I assume you get put in, in the, in the Tower Of London, yeah, if it all goes wrong. I kept
thinking of the repercussions. I'd like to come back here one day."
The Daily Mail shared a video of a visibly nervous
Eichner preparing to meet the royals on the red carpet and saying to Rogen,
"I'm going to say 'pleasure to meet you' ... is
that bad? I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it."
Eichner later confirmed on Twitter that he indeed settled on this greeting,
and he wasn't shackled, hauled off, or thrown in a cell. As he recalled,
"They were both super down to earth and lovely."