Mike Tindall: I knew Prince Harry when he was fun Anita SinghFri, May 22, 2026 at 6:04 AM UTC 1 Mike Tindall and Prince Harry during a wheelchair rugby exhibition match in 2014. The friendship is reported to have cooled since the prince moved to Montecito Karwai Tang Mike Tindall has joked that he knew Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex “when he was fun”. The former rugby player made the comment as he talked at the Hay Festival about his wedding to Zara Phillips, daughter of the Princess Royal, in 2011.
Mike Tindall: I knew Prince Harry when he was fun
Anita SinghFri, May 22, 2026 at 6:04 AM UTC
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Mike Tindall and Prince Harry during a wheelchair rugby exhibition match in 2014. The friendship is reported to have cooled since the prince moved to Montecito - Karwai Tang
Mike Tindall has joked that he knew Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex “when he was fun”.
The former rugby player made the comment as he talked at the Hay Festival about his wedding to Zara Phillips, daughter of the Princess Royal, in 2011.
Tindall was speaking at the literature and arts festival in Powys with James Haskell and Alex Payne, his co-hosts on The Good, The Bad and The Rugby podcast.
He expressed mock surprise that Haskell had not made an idiot of himself at the wedding, and joked: “A lot of other people managed that way better than you – [like] Harry, when he was fun.”
The Duke of Sussex is godfather to the Tindalls’ second daughter, Lena, but the friendship is reported to have cooled since the Sussexes moved to Montecito, California.
Zara Phillips, Prince Harry and Mike Tindall in 2014 - Getty
At the Hay session, which recreated the banter familiar to fans of the podcast, Tindall also made jokes about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
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When Payne mentioned that Tindall was well-connected, thanks to his rugby credentials and the fact that “he’s got his own bedroom at Buckingham Palace”, Mr Tindall replied: “Opposite end to Andrew, though.”
He hinted that he may get in trouble for mentioning the disgraced former Duke of York, saying: “Backstage, they were like, ‘It’s being recorded, maybe stay away from [the subject of] Andrew tonight?’”
There were more gags about Mr Tindall’s royal connections. The former England centre had corrective rhinoplasty for his broken nose in 2018, and Haskell quipped: “Taxpayers’ money fixed it. It’s got the royal warrant if you look inside it.”
The Tindalls’ wedding, at Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh, took place five years before Prince Harry met Meghan Markle - WireImage
The trio announced they had filmed a pilot for a TV series in which they try to run Richmond Rugby Club in south-west London, likening it to Welcome to Wrexham (in which Ryan Reynolds, the Hollywood star, bought a football club) and Clarkson’s Farm.
Payne said he dreamt of using Tindall’s contacts book to put the club on the map.
He said: “We’ve got some amazing ideas – Amazon Prime are interested – if we can get it going. The Rolling Stones used to practise when they were 16 years old in the Richmond club house, and one of my ambitions is to get Mick Jagger back, because he lives in Richmond, to do a big gig at Richmond Athletic Ground, raise money and get the club back on the map.
“Tin[dall]’s obviously got good connections ... we could have Catherine meeting the team, the Princess of Wales. These are all massive pipe dreams.”
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: May 23, 2026 at 03:00AM on Source: PRIME TIME
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