{"id":984699,"date":"2026-05-25T23:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T23:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/984699\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T23:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T23:00:19","slug":"royal-family-member-makes-rare-remarks-about-prince-harry-and-ex-prince-andrew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/984699\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal family member makes rare remarks about Prince Harry and ex-Prince Andrew"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prince Harry<\/strong> and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor<\/strong> don\u2019t usually come up in royal family members\u2019 public conversations these days.<\/p>\n

But Mike Tindall<\/strong> unexpectedly put both exiled princes back in the spotlight during a lively appearance at a literature and arts festival in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, where the former rugby star cracked jokes about everything from his royal wedding to palace sleeping arrangements.<\/p>\n

Speaking alongside his \u201cThe Good, The Bad and The Rugby\u201d podcast co-hosts James Haskell<\/strong> and Alex Payne<\/strong> during a May 21 appearance at the Hay Festival, Mike reflected on his 2011 wedding to Zara Tindall<\/strong> \u2014 the daughter of Princess Anne<\/strong> \u2014 and teased James about behaving himself at the celebration.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of other people managed that way better than you \u2014 [like] Harry, when he was fun,\u201d Mike quipped, as reported by The Telegraph<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The comment marked a rare public mention of the Duke of Sussex from a member of the extended royal family.<\/p>\n

Harry, who is Zara\u2019s first cousin, was once close with the Tindalls. He\u2019s godfather to the couple\u2019s second child, Lena, who turns 8 in June.<\/p>\n

But relations between Harry and the royal family have, of course, cooled significantly since he and Meghan Markle<\/strong> stepped back from royal duties and moved to California in 2020.<\/p>\n

More jokes\"Zara<\/p>\n

Zara Tindall and Mike Tindall have remained among the royal family\u2019s most visible non-working royals in recent years. By: James Whatling \/ MEGA<\/p>\n

But Mike didn\u2019t stop with Harry. During the banter-filled discussion, he also made a few cheeky remarks about the former Duke of York, who\u2019s faced years of scrutiny over his ties to predator Jeffrey Epstein<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

When Alex joked that Mike was so royally connected that he had \u201chis own bedroom at Buckingham Palace,\u201d the retired rugby player shot back, \u201cOpposite end to Andrew though.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike later suggested event organizers were nervous about the topic coming up at all. \u201cBackstage, they were like, \u2018It\u2019s being recorded, maybe stay away from [the subject of] Andrew tonight?’\u201d he revealed, according to The Telegraph.<\/p>\n

The comments come amid fresh headlines surrounding Mountbatten-Windsor, whose royal titles were stripped in late 2025 by King Charles III<\/strong> following renewed controversy over his relationship with Epstein. In February, the former Prince Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office weeks after the U.S. Department of Justice released emails suggesting he passed sensitive government information to the disgraced financier while serving as Britain\u2019s trade envoy.<\/p>\n

Now reports published in recent days indicate police inquiries have widened to include a sexual misconduct investigation.<\/p>\n

Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Past closeness<\/p>\n

Despite Mike\u2019s playful tone, his comments brought back memories of the once-close friendship he shared with Harry long before the Duke of Sussex\u2019s royal exit.<\/p>\n

Mike and Zara attended Harry and Meghan\u2019s 2018 wedding and publicly supported several of Harry\u2019s charitable efforts over the years. Before Harry fell out with The Firm, Mike frequently socialized with Harry at sporting events and family gatherings, while Zara and Harry grew up together as grandchildren of Queen Elizabeth II<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Mike has spoken warmly about Harry in the past. During a 2022 appearance on I\u2019m A Celebrity\u2026 Get Me Out of Here!, he recalled first meeting Prince William<\/strong> and Harry long before he ever dated Zara.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were friends first and then William and Harry were massive England [rugby] fans at the time, so we\u2019d met them numerous times,\u201d Mike said. \u201cMet more of the family than you\u2019d normally have met of the woman you start dating.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hay Festival appearance also featured lighter moments unrelated to the royals, including jokes about Mike\u2019s surgically repaired nose and discussion of a possible new TV series centered on reviving Richmond Rugby Club, similar to Welcome to Wrexham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prince Harry and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor don\u2019t usually come up in royal family members\u2019 public conversations these days. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":984700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7708],"tags":[173775,133316,65302,97246,2204,8129,447,5105,7710,519,24553,448,13083],"class_list":["post-984699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-royals","tag-andrew-mountbatten-windsor","tag-hay-festival","tag-james-haskell","tag-james-whatling","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-mike-tindall","tag-prince-harry","tag-royal","tag-royal-families","tag-royal-family","tag-royal-wedding","tag-royals","tag-zara-tindall"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/984700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}