{"id":432887,"date":"2026-02-18T20:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432887\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T20:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:38:07","slug":"princess-anne-thought-i-was-joe-marler-heyes-mixed-up-in-case-of-mistaken-identity-england-rugby-union-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432887\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Princess Anne thought I was Joe Marler\u2019: Heyes mixed up in case of mistaken identity | England rugby union team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who tuned in to the celebrity version of The Traitors last year will be familiar with the former England rugby player Joe Marler. With the exception, it turns out, of Princess Anne who was involved in a case of mistaken identity during the Calcutta Cup pre-match formalities at Murrayfield last Saturday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Clearly unaware Marler had retired from rugby 15 months ago, the Princess Royal stopped for a chat with her new favourite prop while being introduced to the England team in her role as patron of Scottish Rugby. She even confided how amusing she had found him on Celebrity Traitors, which would have been fine had the player in front of her been Marler rather than another bearded English front-rower, Joe Heyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe thought I was Joe Marler which was \u2026 quite upsetting,\u201d said Heyes. \u201cShe said: \u2018You\u2019re awfully funny on TV.\u2019\u201d To his credit, the 26-year-old Leicester tighthead \u2013 \u201cI was a bit starstruck to start with\u201d \u2013 did his best to avoid a diplomatic incident. \u201cWho am I to correct her? I didn\u2019t really know what to say. I almost went with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The princess has been patron of Scottish Rugby since 1986 and her daughter Zara is married to Mike Tindall, an England World Cup winner. She is not the first person, however, to mix up Marler and Heyes.<\/p>\n

The England bearded prop Joe Heyes, not Joe Marler. Photograph: Bob Bradford\/CameraSport\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had all sorts about me looking like Joe Marler, but not from a royal,\u201d said Heyes, who was winning his 19th cap for England. The Leicester forward, however, stressed that last Saturday\u2019s encounter had still been a special one. \u201cI do like it when you get to meet the patron of whatever union you\u2019re playing against. It\u2019s a very cool moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marler, 35, who won 95 caps for England before retiring from rugby in November 2024, has become an increasingly familiar public face since appearing on the BBC\u2019s Celebrity Traitors<\/a>. A slightly incongruous contestant in the castle alongside Stephen Fry, Alan Carr and Jonathan Ross, he reached the final round before being voted out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anyone who tuned in to the celebrity version of The Traitors last year will be familiar with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-432887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}