Prince Harry Fake Punched by Mike Tindall, Royal Fans Angry

Prince Harry wears a black polo shirt and Mike Tindall wears a red soccer jersey while attending the Invictus Games 2014

(Image credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

published 29 October 2024

Former rugby player Mike Tindall is married to Princess Anne's daughter, Zara Tindall, so he has a plethora of hilarious Royal Family stories. In new book, The Good, the Bad & the Rugby—Unleashed, co-written with fellow rugby players Alex Payne and James Haskell, it's revealed what happened when Tindall fake punched Prince Harry.

Revisiting the story, Haskell explained (via the Express), "[Mike] even got into a bit of trouble when he appeared on a live version of [British TV show] A Question of Sport: he told a story about him and Iain Balshaw pretending to punch Prince Harry at a post-World Cup final party in 2003 and joked that the Royal Family wanted to fill him in for real."

He continued, "I say trouble but it was a bit of a minor kerfuffle... It did come back into public consciousness when... [royal commentator] Omid Scobie started sticking up for Harry and Meghan, and loads of trolls went in on [Mike], especially about him wanting to fill in a young, defenseless Harry."

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Gaskell continued, "All context, sarcasm and humor lost, when things are taken out of the zone they were meant to be in. To be fair to [Mike] he gives zero f***s about stuff like that, but it's very annoying for him."

Meanwhile, in an excerpt from the book published by the Daily Mail, Tindall revealed that there is an uncut version of a podcast episode he recorded with Kate Middleton and Prince William.

Discussing the Prince and Princess of Wales' appearance on the show, Tindall wrote, "They came across as down-to-earth, fully engaged, funny and knowledgeable." He continued, "It was a far more enlightening chat than I expected, not because I thought they’d be dull (I already knew that they weren’t) but because I know how everything to do with the royal family is so carefully controlled."

Teasing the uncut episode, Tindall wrote, "I think the podcast humanized them a little bit, and I kind of wish they’d let us put the uncut version out, because it would have blown the public away."

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Amy Mackelden is the weekend editor at Marie Claire, where she covers celebrity and royal family news. She was the weekend editor at Harper’s BAZAAR for three years, where she covered breaking celebrity and entertainment news, royal stories, fashion, beauty, and politics. Prior to that, she spent a year as the joint weekend editor for Marie Claire, ELLE, and Harper's BAZAAR, and two years as an entertainment writer at Bustle. Her additional bylines include Cosmopolitan, People, The Independent, HelloGiggles, Biography, Shondaland, Best Products, New Statesman, Heat, and The Guardian. Her work has been syndicated by publications including Town & Country, Good Housekeeping, Esquire, Delish, Oprah Daily, Country Living, and Women's Health. Her celebrity interviews include Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Chastain, the cast of Selling Sunset, Emma Thompson, Jessica Alba, and Penn Badgley. In 2015, she delivered an academic paper at Kimposium, the world's first Kardashian conference.