A royal expert has claimed that Prince Harry’s recent appearance at a rugby match in the United Kingdom is proof that his declining popularity “isn’t a media conspiracy”.
It was reported this week that the Duke of Sussex, 42, was booed while watching Leicester Tigers take on Gloucester in a Premiership Rugby clash at Mattioli Woods Welford Road Stadium on Friday evening.
TNT Sports’ live coverage of the event showed cameras focusing on Prince Harry in the crowd, which prompted boos from his fellow attendees.
“A face in the crowd, Prince Harry, back home and enjoying some rugby again,” commentator Nick Mullins remarked, before noting the stadium’s sour reception to the Duke.
“Some boos there,” he could be heard saying in the footage.
Now, royal expert and commentator Tom Sykes has taken to The Royalist Substack blog to dub the brutal gesture by the British public as “the stuff of royal nightmares”.
“When the tabloids attack him, Harry can take them to court. When the Palace sends a chilly letter, he can blame the men in grey suits,” he penned.
“The entire Sussex story depends on the idea that the press and the courtiers are the problem, and that the British people, deep down, are still on his side.”
However, according to Sykes, the boos Harry received during the rugby match last week were “the verdict of the people”.
“This isn’t a media conspiracy. This isn’t the press.”
Sykes recalled the last time Prince Harry was publicly booed during his and Meghan Markle’s “date night” at Dodger Stadium in 2025, where they watched the Los Angeles Dodgers take on the Toronto Blue Jays.
The couple, who were sitting front row during Game 4 of the World Series, appeared on the jumbotron screen during the outing, which was met with a chorus of boos from the crowd.
The expert pointed out that it mirrored Harry’s recent jeer in the UK, adding: “He has now been booed in the stands of his adopted home and in the stands of his real one.”
The Duke of Sussex has long criticised the presence of the media, and publicly blamed the “toxic” British press’s negative coverage of him and his family for his departure from royal life in 2020.
“It was a really difficult environment, as I think a lot of people saw,” he told James Corden in 2021 while addressing the publicity he and Meghan received in the UK.
“We all know what the British press can be like, and it was destroying my mental health.”
Harry later told Oprah Winfrey in his controversial 2021 sit-down that the States offered his family a degree of privacy and freedom they “undoubtedly wouldn’t be able” to have in Britain.
He also sensationally claimed in the interview that his “biggest concern was history repeating itself”, referencing the tragic death of his mother, Princess Diana, who passed away in 1997 following a high-speed car chase with paparazzi in Paris.
Flash forward to 2026, Harry, Meghan, 45, and their two kids, Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, have returned to the United Kingdom, and are understood to currently be basing themselves in the Cotswolds.
However, it has been anything but smooth sailing for the family, who have faced a number of hiccups since arriving on British soil.
Just a couple of weeks after the Sussexes touched down in the UK, King Charles, 77, released a statement clarifying their positions within the Royal Family.
He noted that there would be “no change” to their current status and that they are to be treated as “private citizens with commercial and charitable interests”.
Harry and Meghan were reportedly blindsided by the release of the King’s statement, with a spokesperson saying at the time: “We were a little surprised not to have been told about this in advance.”
Furthermore, the family have faced various security issues since moving back, announcing last month that they had decided to move Archie and Lilibet to another school due to safety concerns posed by traffic in the area.
Soon after, it was reported that Meghan’s personal phone number was leaked after she joined a school parents’ group chat the day before Archie and Lilibet were due to start at their new school.