A couple of weeks ago, Prince William was a surprise guest on The Graham Norton Show. He was there to hype Earthshot, but he came across poorly in the clips I saw. William has this thing where he’s trying to sound like a confident global statesman who playfully teases other people, when really he comes across like a posh, arrogant jerk who makes cruel jokes at other people’s expense. I still remember that time in 2023 when he was exceptionally rude to a woman who baked cupcakes for him. On Norton’s show, the whole couch was set up to focus on Earthshot – the other celebrities are Earthshot ambassadors, and they were there because William loves to hang out with celebrities and make ribald python jokes. What I didn’t realize is that this kind of themed talk show episode breaks the rules of the BBC’s whole charter. A prince can’t bring his Earthshot harem onto a BBC talk show and have the whole conversation manipulated around him. Thus, there were hundreds of complaints and Republic has even gotten involved.

Hundreds of people complained to the BBC after it allegedly breached its own rules by giving Prince William a prime slot on the Graham Norton Show, it has been revealed. In October, the royal appeared on Norton’s award-winning talk show to speak about the “Earthshot Prize”, which he set up in 2019.

Norton’s other guests were Cate Blanchett, who is one of 15 members of the “Earthshot Prize Council”, Hannah Waddingham, who has hosted both the Earthshot Prize awards and the “Earthshot Report”, and Robert Irwin, who is a global ambassador for the Earthshot Prize.

After the broadcast, the campaign group Republic – which pushes for the abolition of the monarchy – alleged that the BBC had breached its own broadcasting rules.

“The show appears to have been co-opted for the promotion of the Earthshot Prize, an independent charity with close ties to William,” the group said. “The BBC’s own guidelines say the corporation must not endorse or support individual charities except for its own official corporate charities, such as Children in Need.”

It went on: “In 2013, the BBC reprimanded Norton and his production company after Norton wore a World AIDS Day ribbon on his show. At the time, the BBC said its guidelines meant the corporation ‘must remain independent and distanced from government initiatives, campaigners, charities and their agendas, no matter how apparently worthy the cause or how much their message appears to be accepted or uncontroversial’.”

Graham Smith, the chief executive of Republic, said they would be lodging a formal complaint.

He said: “The BBC has an appalling track record when it comes to royal partiality. They fawn and celebrate and join in with the royal PR machine. They exercise poor judgement time and again, failing to represent either the monarchy or public attitudes fairly or accurately. This latest programme is a case in point. William wants to do this because the royals know the writing is on the wall. They can see the falling polls and they can see the rising voices of opposition.”

Now, a BBC complaints report has revealed that the corporation received 292 complaints about it being “inappropriate” to have invited William onto Norton’s show.

[From The National]

Wait, Graham Norton was reprimanded for wearing a World AIDS Day ribbon? That’s disgusting – the reprimand, I mean. But point taken – if Norton was reprimanded for his AIDS Day ribbon, then there should absolutely be repercussions for bizarrely devoting an entire hour-long talk show to promoting Earthshot. I wondered if there would be pushback on Norton in particular, because it seems so out of character for him and his show, not to mention the questionable ethics of platforming William’s ego-trip endeavor. Norton’s math was probably, “Hey, I got Prince William on my show and no one else did.” But at what cost? Norton looks like a sellout, William looked crude and out-of-touch, and the whole thing felt like a spon-con hostage situation.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, screencap courtesy of the Graham Norton Show.