Prince William rarely “works” weekends. Weekends are his brief reprieve from the brutality of the incessant grind of school runs and one work event a week. William was forced to work one weekend in April, when he was sent to the Vatican for Pope Francis’s funeral. I thought William would have begged off for another six months because of that. But no – he flew to Monaco this weekend to appear at the Blue Economy and Finance Forum. Peggington gave a big global statesman speech about the ocean! What a big boy, what a future statesman! That’s how it’s being covered.
Prince William made a high-profile solo appearance in Monaco on June 8, underscoring his growing role as a global statesman. On the eve of World Oceans Day, Prince William took his environmental mission global — delivering a high-profile speech in Monaco alongside world leaders and fellow royals to address the urgent threat to marine life.
Appearing at the Blue Economy and Finance Forum on June 8, the Prince of Wales, 42, joined the Heads of State and Government session, speaking in front of French President Emmanuel Macron, Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves Robles, and Prince Albert of Monaco, whose Gimaldi Forum venue was hosting the event.
In his speech, William called for urgent action, saying, “We come together today united by our deep connection to the ocean and our concern for its safety. For many of us, it is a place where some of our happiest memories are made… where we have explored the wonders of the natural world… and we have all relied on its great abundance for our food and livelihoods.
“And yet, all too often, it can feel distant and disconnected from our everyday lives, allowing us to forget just how vital it is,” he added. “The truth is that healthy oceans are essential to all life on earth.”
The event marked a key moment in the lead-up to the 2025 UN Ocean Conference and underlined William’s rising diplomatic profile on the international stage.
He sounds like a middle-schooler giving a report on “the ocean.” The ocean is big and blue, it’s very important, people don’t know how important the ocean is, we don’t just swim in the ocean, fish live in there! If you need to be bashed over the head with Kensington Palace’s talking points about Big Boy Willy Gives a Big Boy Speech, please enjoy this piece from the Times: “Prince William wants world to know he’s earned his statesman role.”
Before the Prince of Wales took to the stage in Monaco, his closest advisers had billed his impassioned address as “a landmark speech”. Taking to the stage before President Macron, William’s message was a chance for him to reinforce his message of “urgent optimism”, a recurring theme in his work as he seeks to avoid pessimistic hand-wringing in the climate change debate.
For his aides, the address was “punchy”. Not merely a chance to save the planet but an important step towards reinforcing Prince William as a global statesman. And for global statesman, read king-in-waiting. He certainly looks the part.
It is one of a handful of high-profile events in the past six months in which William has played a significant role on the world stage. In many ways, the project is nothing new. It is a decades-long mission to promote the prince as a sign of the future of the monarchy.
A source who has known William for decades said that a common problem among senior members of the royal family, and one with which William is familiar, was that they were “often the only person in the room who is there by virtue of their birth rather than having earned the right to be there”. With this in mind, the source added, William had worked to ensure that he can hold his own.
This is embarrassing for all involved – William reading a glorified seventh-grader’s book report after flying to an environmental conference in Monaco, then sending his courtiers out to brief the press that his big-boy speech is fit for a king-in-waiting and a diplomatic heavy. Please. I guess the Times didn’t feel like pointing out that the big-boy environmentalist flew to Monaco either. Guess they only reserve that kind of reporting for Prince Harry.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- Lula, Emmanuel Macron, Prince Albert II of Monaco, Rodrigo Chaves Robles and Prince William, Prince of Wales, attend the Blue Economy and Finance Forum, at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco.,Image: 1008593946, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Olivier Huitel/Avalon
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- William, Prince of Wales, attends the Blue Economy and Finance Forum, at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco.,Image: 1008594057, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Olivier Huitel/Avalon
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- William, Prince of Wales, attends the Blue Economy and Finance Forum, at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco.,Image: 1008594080, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Olivier Huitel/Avalon
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- Prince William, Prince of Wales, Princess Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, attend the Blue Economy and Finance Forum, at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco.,Image: 1008594187, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Olivier Huitel/Avalon
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- Blue Economy and Finance Forum (BEFF) at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The forum, organised by the Government of Monaco, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, and the Oceanographic Institute of Monaco, with support from France and Costa Rica, brings together business leaders, government representatives, multilateral institutions and stakeholders committed to restoring the health of the oceans. Featuring: Prince William, Prince Albert II of Monaco Where: Monaco, Monaco When: 08 Jun 2025 Credit: Manon Cruz/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Blue Economy and Finance Forum (BEFF) at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The forum, organised by the Government of Monaco, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, and the Oceanographic Institute of Monaco, with support from France and Costa Rica, brings together business leaders, government representatives, multilateral institutions and stakeholders committed to restoring the health of the oceans. Featuring: Prince William, Prince Albert II of Monaco Where: Monaco, Monaco When: 08 Jun 2025 Credit: Manon Cruz/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Blue Economy and Finance Forum (BEFF) at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The forum, organised by the Government of Monaco, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, and the Oceanographic Institute of Monaco, with support from France and Costa Rica, brings together business leaders, government representatives, multilateral institutions and stakeholders committed to restoring the health of the oceans. Featuring: Prince William Where: Monaco, Monaco When: 08 Jun 2025 Credit: Manon Cruz/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Blue Economy and Finance Forum (BEFF) at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The forum, organised by the Government of Monaco, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, and the Oceanographic Institute of Monaco, with support from France and Costa Rica, brings together business leaders, government representatives, multilateral institutions and stakeholders committed to restoring the health of the oceans. Featuring: Prince William Where: Monaco, Monaco When: 08 Jun 2025 Credit: Manon Cruz/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
Oh dear lord, do they have to give him a tongue bath every time he steps out the door? And yet, this article reads a bit shady – “he certainly looks the part,” “a handful-of high profile events in the past 6 months,” and a decades-long mission to promote the prince as a sign of the future of the monarchy.” Not a decades-long mission to help the environment, but to convince people that William won’t be a dud.
As for the speech – you could pretty much replace “Ocean” with “Early Years” or “Scotland” or any other of the mealy-mouthed speeches W&K deliver – something, something is important, something, something.
That’s just what I did with the speech, replaced oceans for early years and yupp, it’s the same template.
The ocean 🌊 is blue and important and it has fish 🤣🤣🤣. William is a DUNCE me thinks 😎
Don’t forget wet. The ocean is wet😂😂.
Exactly what I was thinking! Same for the post-‘speech’ reporting!
Oh, and William? Please don’t include me in your ‘we all forget about/don’t know about’ speechifying. I live on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific (I’m in Hawaii). We’re very, VERY aware of the ‘importance’ of the ocean.
Hey, did we get any pie charts with this?
Of course you are, like any people who are actually aware of their surroundings.
And William should be too, considering the UK is an island, with a fishing industry and a navy and with about 90% of its goods in or out transported by sea.
@Beaniebean You must be the luckiest girl in the world to live on an island in Hawaii. I used to live near the beach in Florida and I miss it every day.
My immediate response on reading this absolute propaganda is, at 42, so c1990, can you imagine this having to have been written about Charles when PoW?
No, because Charles had already proved his worth many times over the preceding decades and it would have been quite unnecessary, inappropriate even, for such glorification to have to have been employed about him.
Hang your head in shame, William.
I thought this blog post and heading were being mean until I read the quote from the newspapers. Good grief. It’s shocking a middle aged man is being written about in this way.
I thought last week Charles and Diana were never lumped in with Andrew and Sarah and branded the Fab Four. And Prince Andrew would never have been expected to join the prince and princess of wales on their visits, to help.
PippaTips still exists as WillieTips!
*goes to grave laughing*
All great points Kaiser. The embigenning of this Lazy Heir is vomit-inducing.
As for this:
“And yet, all too often, it can feel distant and disconnected from our everyday lives, allowing us to forget just how vital it is.”
Speak for yourself Willy. Not disconnected to reality like you are here.
Did Willy fly on a private jet to Monaco and flew over the sea or got on a yacht and sailed down so he wouldn’t forget how vital it is? 🥴
No one takes this man seriously
Exactly!! He isn’t a global statesman he is a wannabe important person who never does the real work. He has his unqualified yes men write this drivel for him and he just reads what they write. Global statesman my ass.
The BM turned off the comments under this post, they were dragging Cain.
When is he going to tackle the Sewage getting dumped daily in Britain waterways?
😂😂😂 the lipstick on this lazy pig isn’t working.
Yupppp https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/uk-news/prince-william-kate-middleton-attitude-35359366?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target
I was able to comment, negatively of course. Although maybe there’s a new post, but if that’s the case then the negative comments just keep coming and hardly anyone is saying anything nice about William.
Also, the Scottish article was interesting for sure. But I guess they felt they had to temper it with “and figuring out a work schedule is why William can’t pick up the phone to talk to Harry, and btw maybe Harry caused Charles’ and Kate’s cancer.”
I’m confused. Is that excerpt from People the ENTIRE speech? Or just a part of it? Anyways, calling it a “punchy” landmark speech is embarassing. And why does William need to be a global statesmen anyways? Really? Why?
I think he’s just massively insecure. For all of his father’s many faults, he was respected as the Prince of Wales. When traveling on behalf of his mother he wasn’t seen as a big boy playing dress up. A lot of this is William’s fault for being terminally lazy, but he knows that he doesn’t hold the same gravitas. Not even getting started on the popularity of his brother.
I think he just wants to be seen and given the same level of respect and popularity that both of them are and were given, but he doesn’t want to do any of the work behind the scenes so we get articles like this and speeches like this. And then confusion as to why he’s mocked. I’ve said forever that the other royal families in Europe probably find him cringey and eye roll-inducing, and I think a good majority of the business and political leadership do as well. And I don’t think they’re as oblivious to it as they pretend.
Agree. The anger is probably an outlet for his insecurity. He’s been so molly-coddled that outside the UK, people see him for the failure that he is.
As future head of state, he’s an output of the state’s institutions: Palaces, Eton, St Andrew’s, the military.
His growth stunted when he decided to stay with Lazy Kate who was so insular and had no ambitions beyond the Crown. If you look at the education of the other heirs, it’s to foster an outward-looking international mindset. Their spouses worked overseas.
Instead he decided to stay with middle class Little England. Harry knew the mission and worked and married accordingly.
Willy is a product of the tabloids and he’s an output of them and their desires.
I’ve always wanted to be a fly on the wall and hear what the other royal houses think of the Windsors.
This is a reply to @Blogger. William doesn’t have to foster an outward-looking international mindset as the English royal family is the best of the best so no need to look beyond their kin.
Sigh..
Has he ended homelessness yet. We are all waiting.
I’m still waiting for him to end racism.
He’s not going to end racism in general, just in football.
Not because racism is bad per se, but because he’s ‘bored’ with it.
He still has “bring peace to the Middle East” and “do something about the birth rate in Africa” on his to-do list.
I agree with everything in this post just want to add that his privilege is showing in that he assumes or seems to assume that everyone has spent time at or on the ocean. Probably the majority of people on this planet have never seen saltwater or gotten to spend a day at the beach. Also, did I understand correctly that there were only three “world leaders” there and that one of them was Prince Albert?
You don’t need to see the ocean or play in it–as he & Kate have–in order to understand its place in the biosphere. Plus, those of us who live on islands are ultra-aware of the changes happening to the water, the animals, the fish, the weather–warming water contributes to stronger hurricanes, etc. As with his ‘saving Africa’ bloviating, he’s talking about where he gets to recreate & how awful it would be if people in the future don’t get the opportunity to play where he once did. 🙄
Nobody had to write puff pieces like that about Prince Charles. This is so embarrassing.
Like someone said, he should maybe talk about the sh*tty situation in UK with all that sh*t floating to the sea and rivers, since he is such a big boy statesman.
Good point. He’s the head of state, Lazy Willy is future head of state.
Ummm, why doesn’t he just work as the expected head of state is supposed to? Any elected politician would love the privilege given to this lazy one.
Is that Victoria of Sweden side-eyeing him?
She’s ignoring William and sharing a smile with the person next to him. He’s grinning down at her cluelessly.
Beyond embarrassing. There is a UN Ocean conference the whole week in Nice (France). Is the global statesman attending? I guess not. He’s passionate for about 5 minutes. That’s “impact” for real.
So that’s why he’s standing next to the UN flag.
Doesn’t he realise that since he and his lazy wife chased Meghan and Harry out of the country, not too many world leaders would willingly want to associate with a physically abusive man and his racist wife?
Looks like he found his black suit.
Zing!
And yet he could have gone with blue this time…for the oceans!
Albert did 😏
Did he? Funny. This would have been the time! I’m not going back and looking at the pics that close but he prob has a blue tie. Did t someone recently wear a cute blue whale tie? That might’ve been Charles? Or Harry even I can’t remember.
I think Charles had the cute whale tie. But Bulliam could find himself a fish or octopus tie if he half-tried; all he’d need to do is tell a staffer to get on it.
He had weekends open because soccer.season is over so Aston Villa isn’t playing.
That Times article is chockfull of yummy shade. They’re openly repeating the talking points they were handed by KP without even trying to couch them in authentic reporting. I love how they straight up say that his “aides would call it punchy”, i.e. they told *us* to call it punchy, but we couldn’t stomach the lie.
They only start being real when they make it clear that William “looks” the part (as opposed to embodying it), and that he’s spent decades on PR (read: not actual work) just to appear as though he should have a seat at the table with the people around him who’ve fought for it.
I don’t think I even understand what they mean by punchy. It packs a punch? What about it packed a punch? And maybe they should use a word that doesn’t evoke violence?
Good point. He punched Harry. Just a sly word here and there to remind him.
It’s funny because punchy can mean opposite things. For the speech, it would mean it’s impactful and forceful, using few words. For William himself, it would mean dazed, confused and stunned, like he’s been punched.
Was it short? Is that it? Punchy = short? As in, he really had nothing to say?
@BeanieBean – punchy has to be both short and forceful. I don’t know what they call something that’s both short and flaccid.
I think it means direct, hitting with numerous truths.
Whereas packed a punch usually means squeezed a lot into a small space and made a big impact.
“often the only person in the room who is there by virtue of their birth rather than having earned the right to be there”.
Can anybody help me. I am trying to understand this quote. English is not my first language. What the hell are they trying to say??? What virtue of birth does he has?? I don’t see anything other than his laziness. Please explain me.
“By virtue of” is just an old-fashioned way of saying “because of.”
It’s an awful sentence riddled with lies again.
Albert was hosting this do and he is head of state because of his birth and gender.
Not a virtue, just another member of the lucky sperm club.
@blogger
Yes, this is what confused me. Albert (ruling head of the host country) and Victoria (the hardworking heir to the throne). How can they say this??? This quote is completely illogical. How being a royal relates to this forum??? KP is getting worse day by day.
I think, Will’s pall (probably one of his gray men) was shading other members of BRF with that. Will doesn’t work as much as others in BRF, because he is soo busy with learning, instead of just doing his job.
They said similar things about how Will is gonna change the work BRF does and will do fewer appearances and more big impact projects, while Anne was saying there was no need to reinvent royal work.
He’s only at a number of these things mumbling platitudes because he was born into the royal family, he didn’t work his way up, nor is he working now. It’s all just performative nonsense. If I were William I’d start at home, the amount of raw sewage and pollution flowing into England’s rivers, lakes and eventually to the ocean is appalling.
@Honeybee.- what they are saying is that royals know that they get invited to these events simply because of their birth order. They are saying that William understands this so he’s become knowledgeable about the environment and has developed credentials beyond just being a prince, like his creation of Earthshot. So, this makes him more eligible to speak at events like this.
I don’t believe any of it, but this is what their words mean.
I don’t believe it either. That would require William to have a bit of self-awareness & he just doesn’t. He thinks he’s the bees knees.
He probably had someone write it and he brought crib notes. Such a struggle a vacation is needed
Maybe the Lazies are on holiday in the south of France. Makes sense. I’ll go to a “work” event, expenses paid again.
Expenses paid no matter what!
Whoever wrote his speech also writes Kate’s early years speeches. Plus why didn’t he stay for the UN conference?
Not invited to the UN conference? Whereas his aides twisted cousin Albert’s arm to invite him to this do.
Albert would have willingly invited him because he doesn’t like the Sussexes especially after the Oprah interview.
I would have thought that Albert would have had more sympathy for Meghan as his mother was also an American actress, but Albert treated his black girlfriend poorly and his South African wife Charlene treated his half-black son poorly. It was all over the French tabloids.
So racist princes stick together. The problem for Willy is unlike Albert, he is not an absolute monarch the way Albert rules over Monaco. And let’s face it, Albert works.
That’s my question? Also did William not get invited to the dinner Macron hosted the same day? I’ve seen photos of Victoria and Crown Prince Haakon at the dinner but not William
Lmao!
William is so inconsequential that he is not even invited to functions that his European counterparts are invited too. How the mighty BRF has fallen. Internationally, royals can no longer just float along on inherited privilege. The BRF missed that memo because they stayed ensconced in the 1950s (or even Edwardian times) – partly due to the longevity of QEII and her mother, partly because the BRF seems to subscribe to the idea that the Monarchy has to be unchanging, which is actually not true at all. The reason why there are still surviving constitutional monarchies in some European countries is BECAUSE the instiution changed with the times in order to survive. The last time the House of Windsor changed is modus operandi substantially was before WWI.
But do you really think he wasn’t invited? I kind of think it was the wknd and so he rushed out of there to do whatever weekend things William does. With his buddy Knauf. And I don’t mean tat in any type of way just that Knauf was there so they probably went off plotting or there was maybe a game that night for him to watch on the telly idk.
OMG, the “global statesman” line is so embarrassing. We know its a KP talking point bc the media uses that exact phrase over and over and its just embarrassing. NO ONE calls themselves a global statesman…..they just are. But william is so insecure that he needs to announce his status so it just ends up diminishing what status he has.
It is super embarrassing – because he does not have the work portfolio to back up such a claim AND because global statesman is NOT going to be his role. He is to be a ceremonial HoS, he is never going to be influencing policy and if he works to do that, then he is breach of his future constitional role.
This fixation on being known as a global stateman is actually so sad and pathetic – because William needs to come to terms with that is never going to be his role, he is predetermined to be something else. It is not his choice and that lack of choice is actually pretty sad for anyone born into the heir position in a monarchy, they do not get to choose what they want to do with their life. Unless they abdicate and while that possibility exist, we should acknowledge that there would be an immense institutionel and familial pressure on them to fall in line.
Wow, the comments to the BM article are absolutely brutal. Lots of people pointing out that he has the largest carbon footprint in Britain (well maybe after Charles) and that carbon is absorbed by the oceans.
But did William remember to include a pie chart?
That’s what I want to know! Where’s the pie chart? ‘53% of people are unaware of the importance of the ocean, while 47% just don’t care.’
I could only listen to his speeches for a moment. It’s impossible to stand this it’s just a gas
When I heard that the ocean is important and has fish, all I can say is that he has wife “early years are important”, which he deserves, which we’ve known for a long time.
Stupid she, stupid he, what a beautiful disaster.🤣
The ocean is important but most people are unaware of that! The early years are important but most people just don’t know that! 🙄. Future generations will benefit from my pointing that out! Take my picture!
This is embarrassing and he doesn’t seem to have the self awareness to be embarrassed
My God when he ascends the throne he won’t have anybody looking out for him, no one with his best interests at heart. How sad.
Get a mentor like Sir David Attenborough rather than relying on somebody ratty like Jason Knauf if he actually wants to be impactful? Help his tenants and provide accommodation for the homeless by redistribution of his duchy income. Give speeches and follow up action and use his unearned wealth to actually help others.
Jason knauf was with him in Monaco. True love 💕
He also said the first and last couple of sentences in French. And that’s not good publicity for Eton because it was very bad.
Mispronounced lots of things, like the ‘s’ at the end of ‘vous’ (you) and other words that were badly said. You can tell he didn’t try one bit to get it right…
Perhaps had he (or his minions) typed in better AI prompts into MS Copilot, it would have spat out a better speech…
No AI would write such nonsense. Besides, you know that the starting point for AI is existing studies? The participants in Will’s speech could have listened to their own words 🤣
Without even reading the story or many of the comments, this is exactly the same thing as Early Years, empty as hell, a bunch of photos and the appearance of work. Nothing deeper.
Bulliam needs to realize that these PR stunts are empty and attract god-awful responses even in the MoL comments. If he wants anybody to take him seriously about the oceans or the environment, and if he wants to stop looking like a complete hypocrite, then he needs to downsize massively in terms of palaces, helicopters, and travel. He has the largest, or second-largest, carbon-footprint in Britain, and 30% of carbon emissions end up in the ocean.
Downsizing some palaces (or opening them up to the unhoused!), combined with going back to community work and ribbon-cutting, could help with that.
The UN Ocean Conference was geld this past week in Nice, France. It’s where the scientists get to talk about their research. Ideally, PW would have met with the UK scientists … If he was just there on the weekend, it doesn’t sound like he did.
Don’t William and Albert share…ah, mutual interests?
Give us more of a hint? Sorry if I’m being thick.
I’d have thought Albert wouldn’t want any association with W, W’s reputation must precede him Europe-wide. W seems to avoid European royals at all costs – he knows that they know
Willy is the poster child of “I only went to university because my daddy made me. Therefore, the tutor did all my assignments.” This man is a waste of space, cares about nothing, and doesn’t put effort into anything.
To be fair his wife has the forest covered so he NEEDED to have the ocean.