Dominic West claims that Prince Harry cut him off after their 2013 South Pole trek

Dominic West is still promoting the final season of The Crown, in which he plays Prince Charles (now King Charles). West was always a bad choice to play Charles, although he did have some moments where I thought he genuinely captured Charles’s self-centered pathos. During an interview recently, West was asked if he had gotten any advice from Prince Harry on how to play Charles. The question wasn’t some random thing – West actually knows Harry and they went together on the Walking with the Wounded trek to the South Pole in 2013. As it turns out, West and Harry had a falling out after the South Pole adventure, at least according to West.

Dominic West was asked about his relationship with Harry while appearing on Times Radio. West, 54, and Harry trekked the South Pole in 2013 for Walking With the Wounded, a UK charity benefiting injured veterans. When asked if Harry offered any advice for tackling the role of Charles, West explained the two are no longer on speaking terms.

“I said too much in a press conference and so we didn’t speak after that,” West said. “I think I was asked what we did to celebrate when we got there and probably said something too much.”

West previously described lively post-expedition celebrations, ABC News reported at the time of the excursion. “Most of us, Harry included, just went on a two-day bender with the Icelandic truck drivers who had brought some lethal home brew with them,” West said. “There was a lot of liqueur drunk.”

[From USA Today]

Given West’s penchant for indiscretion, I absolutely believe that West said too much about Harry in the post-trek media blitz and Harry likely cut off contact with him. In case you need that underlined and tabloidized, Richard Eden at the Mail had an update!

The Crown star Dominic West was such a firm friend of his fellow Old Etonian the Duke of Sussex that they trekked to the South Pole together in aid of the charity Walking for the Wounded. Now, however, West has confirmed that he has been cut off by Prince Harry.

Last year, a close friend of the actor told me that that he had fallen out with the Prince after West’s disclosures at a good-natured joint press conference following their expedition with injured servicemen and women, including double amputees. Among the anecdotes that West told was how they had toasted their victory over the elements by drinking champagne from one of their co-adventurers’ prosthetic legs.

‘Harry threw a s*** fit,’ West’s friend told me in May 2022. ‘He accused Dominic of invading his privacy. Dominic told him not to be ridiculous. They haven’t spoken since.’

Even more bizarrely, Harry, 39, is said to have since taken against anyone whom he suspects of being a friend of the actor’s, the source claimed.

At the press conference in 2014, West talked candidly about how the team had celebrated after completing their 208-mile trek in the previous year. ‘Two of the Aussie guys stripped naked and ran round the pole but most of us, Harry included, just went on a two-day bender with the Icelandic truck drivers who had brought some lethal home brew with them.’ He added: ‘There was a lot of liqueur drunk. We all drank champagne out of [one of the team’s] favourite prosthetic legs.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Yeah… what Dominic West said at the time was not only indiscreet, it was probably off-message for the charity. The whole point of Walking with the Wounded was to raise money and awareness for veterans and that should have been front-and-center of the media coverage after the South Pole trip. Instead, West couldn’t shut up about how hard they partied and he made Harry sound like a drunken buffoon. Harry was probably justifiably pissed at Dominic and I wouldn’t be surprised if Harry really did cut him off. Oh well? I guess Eden thinks this makes Harry look bad. It doesn’t.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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53 Responses to “Dominic West claims that Prince Harry cut him off after their 2013 South Pole trek”

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  1. Kokiri says:

    So he was indiscreet then & is being so here again.
    Good job cutting him off Harry, he showed you who he was & you believed him.

    • swaz says:

      It was good indeed. Dominic will make a better friend to William, two adulterers 😫😫😫

    • Advisor2U says:

      A friend of a source told Eden this and the other, not Dominic himself ?
      Since Eden is such a flat-faced lying tabloid gossiper, this story belongs in the category “another slow season’s desperate attempt to fill in the blank spots of a trashy gossip story.”

      • OriginalLeigh says:

        @Advisor – I’m sure the Eden piece is exaggerated but there is a direct quote from Dominic in the USA Today story, so it seems that the part about Harry cutting him off for being indiscreet is true. Good for Harry.

      • Agreatreckoning says:

        Maureen Eden never quite established West & Harry were firm friends. West would have started/gone? to Eton when Harry was a baby/toddler. I’m sure they were best buddies back then. /s All we know is that they both did the 2013 trek and West is not a discreet person. Unless, putting a note on a bush outside of your house after having been called out for being a cheater and then asking for privacy, makes him discreet.

        Is it actually cutting off someone who you may not have known well but did a big walk with and you don’t/didn’t speak with them again? I’ve done walks for cancer. DH ran marathons. Both with the some of the same people who we were pictured and friendly with. It didn’t mean we were friends-comrades in a cause-didn’t make us friends. Guess what? We didn’t chat outside of those events. West & Co. is looking for an OBE with this bs.

        If someone told Maureen Eden this stuff last year, he would have shared it last year. Try hard.

        Great project-West was a dick.
        https://walkingwiththewounded.org.uk/about-us/our-story/

  2. Steph says:

    I wonder if Harry would care about these comments now? I can see how ten years ago when he was still the party Prince this would piss him off. But he’s mostly shaken that image.

    • SarahLee says:

      I think he would care because it isn’t a great look – it pulled focus from the charity, which was the point of the trek. West was indiscreet at best 10 years ago, and he appears to have learned nothing in a decade.

    • SAS says:

      I haven’t googled to check how far it spread but soldiers drinking out of a leg prosthetic were part of some horrific war crimes allegations that have been provided in great detail to a months-long defamation trial here in Australia.

      I think he would still care not to be mixed up in those Google results for a stupid post-charity challenge celebration. Ugly that this is being rehashed. They so clearly have no line on M&H these days!

    • fishface says:

      I agree it would not have been a good look for Harry except for the fact that Harry 10 years ago and Harry today are very different people, and he’s been very open about his journey and transformation, as well as recognising his past failures. So in that context, it’s all another attempt by the media to drum up a storm in their little tea cups.

      Meanwhile, Dominic West was and remains a smug POS. His wife should have dumped him when she had the chance.

      • Agreatreckoning says:

        +++

        Honestly, the group of them drinking a lot after having reached the South Pole should not be a thing. A wounded veteran, offering up his prosthetic leg to drink out of, should not be a thing. It’s not like they made someone do it. Someone offered it up as a sign of accomplishment. D@mn, I’d offer it up, if it was me.

        West’s comments undermine the whole project. Diarrhea of the mouth during that situation is not cool.

  3. Robert Phillips says:

    Can someone tell me if they were friends before this trek. Or if this is when they met. Because if they only met for this charity. And then when the charity was over they didn’t stay in touch. That doesn’t mean Harry wrote him off. It just means they weren’t actually friends at all. Just because you know someone and have done something together. Doesn’t mean your friends. Everyone reading this. Are you friends with everyone you work with. No. you just work with them. This is just the tabloids again trying to make up a story. And the stupid thing is West is going along with it. And who would care if Harry went on a bender after that?

    • agirlandherdogs says:

      This. There’s a 15 year age difference there, and now, with Harry approaching 40, that wouldn’t be a huge deal. But when Harry was in his 20s? I seriously doubt they were friends. Even if they knew each other prior to the charity event, it was most likely only tangentially. So they were just two guys participating in the same charity event. Not lifelong friends who had a falling out because West is terrible at PR.

    • Agreatreckoning says:

      My apologies for not reading your comment @Robert Phillips before posting upthread.

      Where exactly is the evidence that Harry & West were firm friends? This is the first I’m hearing about it. Which really doesn’t mean a thing. Just like what Maureen Eden wrote. Eden is really scraping the barrel for his end if the year clicks/bonus.

    • lucy2 says:

      Totally this. West makes it seem like they were friends beforehand, and I don’t think that’s the case? Obviously they didn’t bond in such a way as to keep in touch, and he seems like kind of an ass anyway, so he’s making more of this than it probably is.

      Fun side note also on that adventure was Alexander Skarsgard.

  4. equality says:

    Was West mentioned at all in Spare? I wonder if he has over-estimated his importance in Harry’s life.

    • Ameerah M says:

      That part. All of a sudden everyone was Harry “friend”. Harry is a Virgo. The people he considers his ACTUAL friends are probably a really short list.

      • Christine says:

        I can’t really fathom what it must be like to be Harry. He can meet someone for 5 minutes, and for the rest of that person’s life, Harry is a story they tell everyone they know. I would hate every second of being famous.

  5. Ameerah M says:

    This is the dude who was dumb enough to get caught out and about with his side piece (Lily James). He’s an indiscreet moron. It’s truly wild to me how much he is like his character from The Affair (he probably is too dumb to enough realize this)

    • Campbell says:

      Very true, I remember all the stories about him and Lily James and it looked like his wife was going to divorce him.

      • Lady Digby says:

        Isn’t he the turnip who thoroughly embarrassed his wife over a public affair with Lily James when they were snapped snogging and clutching each other passionately at an airport on their way to an illicit holiday?? His lovely aristocratic wife deserves so much better than this ratbag who just laughed it off as just one of those things that men do as in it doesn’t count and she won’t be leaving a megahunk like me? What an insensitive Berk!

      • Deering24 says:

        Why on earth did his wife take him back? She’s got a lot more going for her that he does. And if my husband had humiliated me like that, they never would have found his body. 🙄😡😉

    • Surly Gale says:

      I believe the aristocrats don’t think of infidelity as a ‘real’ sin. Marriage vows to them must be tongue in cheek? Think of all the partner switching we know about. Can’t even imagine the stuff we don’t know about. My mum and step-dad were of that era (my mum cheated on my dad with his best friend) though I can guarantee my dad was faithful to his second wife (he adored her) I know mother and stepfather were not faithful to each other.

  6. Campbell says:

    I saw that and thought “so you blabbled your mouth off about Harry then and you’re blabbing your mouth off about Harry now”. Why would he consider you a friend?

    • North of Boston says:

      Even if they’d been friends at one point, I can see his blabbing creating distance. West sounds like an indiscreet idiot who lacks judgment. Like there’s stuff that might go on in the trenches or expeditions, but you don’t make that the key talking point when talking about the more meaningful aspects of your work.

      And that follow up (whether it’s made up or not) doesn’t make West sound any better: he blabbed, Harry objected to it and DW doubled down. If Harry hadn’t backed away at first, West not realizing he’d crossed a line, was acting like an immature dope would have done it.

  7. Eurydice says:

    “Fellow Etonian”? West is 15 years older than Harry.

    • SueBarbri33 says:

      This right here. Harry doesn’t know McNulty! They worked together on one thing. Anything to make Harry look bad. This is all so ridiculous.

    • Christine says:

      It’s so weird how the British media acts like everyone who ever went to Eton are buddies. They did the same with the Grosvenor duke.

      • Agreatreckoning says:

        It is so weird. It’s like me saying I babysat for a couple and me & the children are besties in our adult lives though I have maybe seen them once or twice since when they were teenagers/adults. But we’re BESTIES!!!!!!!

  8. Sasha says:

    Is indiscretion one of his key personality traits or something? He got caught totally red handed in a ridiculous set of photos with Lily James. The man is a fool!

    • Polly says:

      Yes it is. He blabbed about his co-star Romola Garai’s pregnancy in an interview before she was ready to talk about it publicly. Asked about it later she basically rolled her eyes and said it was typical of him.

  9. Amy Bee says:

    Eden thinks this makes Harry look bad but it really doesn’t. It makes Dominic West look terrible.

  10. GDubslady says:

    I feel really sorry for West’s wife and family. Didn’t she have to give up her ancestral home and dealing with an affair on top of that? He has really brought her down.

    • Jaded says:

      They’ve actually turned Glin Castle, her ancestral home in Ireland, into mostly event space but still have living quarters there, and they also have homes in London and the Cotswolds. I cannot for the life of me understand why she took that cheating louse back after the Lily James debacle, you KNOW he’s going to cheat again and again. As for his comments about Harry, he’s really clout-chasing there. No wonder Harry canceled him.

  11. traci says:

    West is such a clown. His behavior is so childish and good on H for cutting him off.

  12. Becks1 says:

    I can see those comments being an issue for Harry for two reasons – in 2013, he was trying really hard to shed the party prince image and his military charity work was starting to come front and center for him. Stories like this would set him back. And this also makes the charity look less serious. So I can see why Harry would object to these comments.

    Of course, I’m also with the above posters wondering – were they ever that close? Likely not.

  13. Mads says:

    I’ve never liked West; he’s one of those people that I immediately took a dislike to, completely irrational as I don’t know the man, and I find it impossible to watch him in anything because that indelible sense of loathing. Always looks like he needs a good wash too.

  14. sevenblue says:

    I remember articles back then how Will and Harry had very close circles of friends and if anyone spoke to the press, they would be immediately cut off. It was presented as very smart of young royals. Of course, now everything is upside down, so this will be counted as Harry being bad. I am just glad, at least that was before Meghan, so they can’t blame her for it somehow.

    • Agreatreckoning says:

      Duncan Larcombe discussed how William would put out false information to friends to see who the leakers were based on stories the tabloids put out when he was younger.

      William worked this to his advantage in later years. Abusing his brother and sister-in-law.

  15. Emily says:

    Royal reporters are so desperate for Sussex stories they’re going back to 2013 to find them.

  16. Brassy Rebel says:

    I read “South Pole Trek” and immediately thought of Harry’s poor frostbitten “todger”. I wonder if West had the same problem. My mind is a sewer. 😳

    • sevenblue says:

      Honestly, I didn’t know that was a thing. It was a revelation for me that that can happen to men.

    • Agreatreckoning says:

      The frozen todger story was in 2011. The North Pole trek. I believe someone made Harry a special knitted koozie for the 2013 South Pole trek.

  17. L4Frimaire says:

    This is a married man who blatantly carried on an affair with his much younger costar, then made hostage appearances with his aggrieved wife to sweep it away. He is the last person who should be judging others actions towards him. Maybe Harry cut him off because he’s a messy b*tch who obviously has no sense of discretion.

    • Anonima says:

      This made me so sad for the wife… that forced appearance afterward. Someone above posted West doesn’t look nice and they immediately disliked him…. As much as possible to actually dislike someone you don’t know, me too, or rather feel creeped out by the look of him. And surely many won’t agree, I kind of felt bad for Lily James too… he probably gave her an earful of ‘I’m leaving her for you’ and then she got dragged through the mud while he came out scot free. Blargh.

      • Anna says:

        He played his „The Affair” character so well because he basically played himself. I don’t understand why his wife agreed to this public humiliation – she must have hell of a reason

  18. Jay says:

    This is exactly the story we should bring to mind whenever the British media whines about how Harry has “abandoned” his old friends and “cut them off” after he married Meghan.
    West is exactly the kind of toxic friend that Harry absolutely should have outgrown- a clout chaser through and through who blabs to the media.

    I have no idea whether Dominic was actually in with Harry’s crowd or not. It seems odd if he was, given their significant age gap. Going on a “two day bender” and pulling focus from a charity would be irresponsible enough for Harry in his 20’s, but West? He was in his early 40’s. Good riddance, I say.

  19. phlyfiremama says:

    As big of an asshole as west has turned out to be, I think this is a DEFINITE win for Prince Harry!! Kicked him to the MF CURB!! 😂😂

  20. Cassie says:

    Christ how many more of these desperate articles can they write .
    Scraping the bottom of the barrel now .

  21. Rose says:

    Prince Harry has been betrayed and used by so many people, sad to see this sophomoric effort. Mr West is the least among them, not worth the effort to deny.

  22. Nerd says:

    So other than this Walking with the Wounded trekking expedition there is no other real connections between the two men. Eden attempted to make a discreet connection by trying to link them through Eton even though there is an obvious 15 year age gap and they wouldn’t have developed a friendship or connection through Eton. We know that Harry has actual friends from Eton when he was there that are still his lifelong friends and they are genuinely good people who have a relationship with Harry, Meghan, Archie and Lili. People interact in a friendly manner with people during long periods of time like through charity walks or seminars, that doesn’t make them actual friends. Harry spoke about how he hated the image he was given as being the party prince and he takes his work, especially his work with wounded veterans very seriously, so for him to say that publicly at that time would have been an issue for Harry. The man is a prick anyway so good on Harry for not allowing this man to be in his life any longer than necessary.

  23. Chelsea says:

    Harry has had friends who’ve talked about him publicly that it doesn’t appear he cut off so I think Kaiser is right and that it was more about the topic(drinking) and the event(Walking With The Wounded). It’s not a secret that the caricature of Harry as a drunk clown got under his skin and that it really bothered him when his work was dismissed by the press and instead old stories of partying were the headlines(see the story in Spare where he gets angry when the press pack following him in Lesotho is more focused on narratives about ‘party boy harry trying to clean his image’ than the children suffering due to HIV) so i can see him being annoyed that someone who knows this would still run his mouth about them partying at a press conference for a cause so important to him.

    Sidenote: remember that story from last year’s Invictus Games about how Harry ONLY had one beer because he was preparing for a speech the next day? The UK press is obsessed with chiding him for caring too much about his work to get trashed and not being ‘fun’ anymore. They only miss ‘fun’ drunk Harry because they want to paint him as an unserious drunk clown in comparison to his brother(even though they all know william drank just as much and apparently still does).

  24. Duoduoduo says:

    Yes, it’s indiscreet and bad PR but don’t really care for Harry.
    This guy is obviously in an open marriage. Lily James apparently also had an affair with Armie Hammer (leaked by Elizabeth Chambers).