Prince William is a man of many talents: he can fly a helicopter, climb a mountain, drive a tractor, spin records like a DJ, and cook a lasagna, but apparently he has to draw the line somewhere. On his recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Prince William was promoting the upcoming Earthshot Prize Awards alongside a celebrity panel of guests. During the relaxed chat show, the Prince of Wales revealed the unusual request he once received at a royal engagement that he had to turn down.
“A lovely gentleman looked up at me and said, ‘when are you going to sing?’” Prince William shared to an amused audience. “Listen, I’ve had many requests over many years from all ranging parts of society,” the prince continues, hinting at the many different people he has met through all walks of life, and the unusual conversations he might have. I can only imagine the requests he has received in the past, but being asked to sing seemed to perplex the prince. “I said, ‘I’m sorry, what do you mean?’ And he goes, ‘well, when are you going to sing your performance?’”
Prince William expertly delivered the punchline to the story, saying “a lady tapped on him and said, ‘No, he’s not that Prince’.” In a case of mistaken identity, the gentleman mistook the prince’s presence for musical legend, Prince, and expected the guest of honor to take to the stage and serenade them. “Turns out he wanted me to sing Purple Rain, which I don’t know the lyrics for.” (Or in this case, Purple Reign.)
American-born singer-songwriter Prince, who died in 2016, could not look more different from Prince William, the Prince of Wales, but stranger things have happened. After all, Prince William did perform a song with Taylor Swift and Jon Bon Jovi at a charity event at Kensington Palace.