Eleven years ago, Benedict Cumberbatch married a woman who looks like his blood relative, had three sons with her and promptly turned into a full-blown royalist. Maybe Bendy had always been royal-curious, but in recent years, he’s been doing a lot (too much) with the Windsors. Bendy turned up at Windsor Castle for King Charles’ big documentary premiere in January, and he’s also chatted up Queen Camilla at various events more times than I can count. Well, Bendy is now fully on Team Scooter King. Cumberbatch was part of a “business forum” alongside a very handsy Prince William.
Prince William is resting easy knowing that he’s doing his part to help the planet. The Prince of Wales, 44, teamed up with Emma Watson, Benedict Cumberbatch and more at a business forum for The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife on Monday, June 22, as part of London Climate Action Week. Watson, 36, has previously supported Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, presenting the “Fix Our Climate” award at the inaugural ceremony in London in 2021.
At the event, the royal heir said his Earthshot Prize gave him optimism, as helping to find solutions to environmental issues “helps me sleep at night,” according to The Telegraph. However, he acknowledged that there would be “some sweaty nights” figuring out what to do next after the Earthshot decade wraps in 2030.
“We have some debating to do. It is going to keep us on our toes,” the royal said. Prince William also told former U.S. vice president Al Gore that the Earthshot Prize “keeps my environmental anxiety at bay because I can actually see some of the things we are doing are bringing change. We can do this. There are actually tangible benefits, and it helps me sleep at night.”
Prince William previously shared how the reassurance he gets from the Earthshot Prize is something he tells his children — Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis — before they go to sleep for the night.
“You have to provide leadership and a vision that there’s good things to come and that it’s not all negative, and for my children, particularly, knowing the planet’s going to be in a healthier, better state because of the brilliant people in this room is something that I love to tell them when they go to bed,” Prince William said last year.
Prince William’s Earthshot Prize — which sees winners in five categories take home $1.4 million to support their efforts — is set to run for a decade, rewarding scalable ideas with the prize money as well as a network of supporters and mentors.
… Wait, why is William turning up to these events and all he can talk about is sleep? Why did he keep referencing sleep?? I’ve said before that we should start calling him Prince Sleep-It-Off, since he can barely roll out of bed before noon (more like 2 pm) for most events. Maybe he just thinks about sleeping constantly, and he can’t help but talk about sleep during work events. I also find it weird that William was trying to latch onto Benedict??
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- 22/06/2026, London, UK. The Prince of Wales, in his role as President and Founder of The Earthshot Prize and as Founder of The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife alongside Emma Watson, and Benedict Cumberbatch as he attends London Climate Action Week and visits a landmark Business Forum for The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife, bringing together some of the world’s largest companies to unveil a new wave of commitments aimed at disrupting the illegal wildlife trade and tackling wider environmental crime.,Image: 1111814486, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image is free for use but may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever. All rights reserved., Model Release: no , Credit line: Pete Maclaine/Avalon
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- Britain’s Prince William talks to former US Vice President Al Gore during a reception at a Business Forum for The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife in London, Monday, June 22, 2026.,Image: 1111787520, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WPA POOL PHOTO, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Kirsty Wigglesworth/Avalon
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- Britain’s Prince William, the Prince of Wales, sits beside actress Emma Watson, right, and actor Benedict Cumberbatch, left, as he attends a landmark Business Forum for The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife in London, Monday, June 22, 2026.,Image: 1111787658, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WPA POOL PHOTO, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Kirsty Wigglesworth/Avalon
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- Britain’s Prince William, the Prince of Wales, sits beside actress Emma Watson, right, and actor Benedict Cumberbatch, left, as he attends a landmark Business Forum for The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife in London, Monday, June 22, 2026.,Image: 1111787658, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WPA POOL PHOTO, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Kirsty Wigglesworth/Avalon
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- Britain’s Prince William speaks as he attends a landmark Business Forum for The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife in London, Monday, June 22, 2026.,Image: 1111787699, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WPA POOL PHOTO, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Kirsty Wigglesworth/Avalon
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- 22/06/2026, London, UK. The Prince of Wales, in his role as President and Founder of The Earthshot Prize and as Founder of The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife alongside Emma Watson, and Benedict Cumberbatch as he attends London Climate Action Week and visits a landmark Business Forum for The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife, bringing together some of the world’s largest companies to unveil a new wave of commitments aimed at disrupting the illegal wildlife trade and tackling wider environmental crime.,Image: 1111814486, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image is free for use but may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever. All rights reserved., Model Release: no , Credit line: Pete Maclaine/Avalon
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- 22/06/2026, London, UK. The Prince of Wales, in his role as President and Founder of The Earthshot Prize and as Founder of The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife alongside Benedict Cumberbatch as he attends London Climate Action Week and visits a landmark Business Forum for The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife, bringing together some of the world’s largest companies to unveil a new wave of commitments aimed at disrupting the illegal wildlife trade and tackling wider environmental crime.,Image: 1111814487, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image is free for use but may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever. All rights reserved., Model Release: no , Credit line: Pete Maclaine/Avalon
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- 22/06/2026, London, UK. The Prince of Wales, in his role as President and Founder of The Earthshot Prize and as Founder of The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife attends London Climate Action Week and visits a landmark Business Forum for The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife, bringing together some of the world’s largest companies to unveil a new wave of commitments aimed at disrupting the illegal wildlife trade and tackling wider environmental crime.,Image: 1111814506, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image is free for use but may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever. All rights reserved., Model Release: no , Credit line: Pete Maclaine/Avalon
What a hypocrite. Scooter took away parkland from other families with children what do those families tell the kids about why their park was taken by scooter. Also all the helicopters scooter uses.
Oh dear…another British actor sucking up to the heir. I guess I’m not surprised. Cumberbatch’s background is upper-class & public-school educated. His antecedents were slave-owning, colonial plantation owners in the Carribbean. I guess he hasn’t done his research on the present Prince of Wales & thought being connected to Earthshit would “be a good thing to do”.
I find it puzzling & frustrating that William keeps talking about his Earthshit Prizes & the celebrities he’s nabbed to support it, but never publicises the ACTUAL PROJECTS that it funds & the tangible results that have been accomplished! There’s been 5 years of prizes! WHERE’S THE FOLLOW UP???
🎯
As someone with an environmental science degree and who has worked in environmental management for 25 years, the self-congratulatory smugness of these people is so f-ing depressing.
Look at them. They really think they’re saving the world.
But it helps him sleep at night. Sigh. Okay. Well good for him.
All the technology we need to address the climate crisis already exists. What is lacking is the political will. Until we have that, William should be wide awake at night.
Scooter reaching over and giggling makes him look ridiculous
Just another fan-boy moment! So ridiculous!
Yeah, it’s true..but when was the last time we saw him so joyful and spontaneous with his wife? I know that everyone believes that he’s so awkward even on staged photos but here’s proof that he’s capable of some sort of spontaneity.
@Tessa … The last time he touched someone in public while giggling this hard was with Tom Cruise.
He is such a fanboy! You can’t tell me he wasn’t fanboying Meghan hard when he first met her.
That top photo with the “creepy man touch” I just can’t unsee it and all it’s phoniness.. Willy leaves a very grotesque “ick” vibe where ever he goes trying to act like he has any sort of personality or emotional understanding of what genuine real human interaction looks like, and continues to come across as though it’s all a performance.
Benedict better watch his back – Katty will be after him as he NEVER touches her like that.
She’ll be fine if Benedict says publicly that she’s the fairest in the land.
Has Bendy had work done because he looks… quite different
That is the weirdest looking toupee I have ever seen!
Awwww how sweet, William tells his children that he’s saving the world so I’m sure they’re sleeping better too! I wonder if he started this during the newborn stage, hoping his droning on would bore them to sleep?
Yeah, isn’t he a very involved father (not)? He puts his children in bed to sleep and he talks about his project… and during the day he uses the 🚁 as a taxi to go to his one every 2 or even 3 times engagement. Isn’t he so eco conscious? /s
Lisa, tell me more about Bendy and otters. What’s the link?
He looks like an otter.
He should be embarrassed by all of this. Perhaps he’s trying for that MBE.
This man cannot carry an event on his own, even one he created? He has to be surrounded by celebrities. Does not make sense to me. He should be interacting with the prize winners verses hanging out with celebrities at his event. When will this farce end?
Isn’t Benedict Cumberbatch an aristo or at least aristo adjacent? I’m not surprised he’s a royalist. As for William, his lack of charisma and personality is the reason why Harry was always made to do engagements with him and Kate. I didn’t know he had an engagement yesterday.
Cucumberpatch, CBE, is an Old Harrovian, descended from slave owners who were aristo-adjacent (diplomats, ambassadors).
(which has also been mentioned further down — which I hadn’t gotten around to reading before hitting the reply button)
His wife is an aristo.
Some unfortunate DNA happening in these photos.
I don’t want to say “yes” but I can’t say “no.” Oh, what the hell, yeah, you’re right!
Ha ha Bendy i love that name for him. however i’m not surprised that he is a royalist since he speaks with a posh accent it sets him apart from a Hardy or a Hiddleston or even a holland you just know he is from the upper echelons of society lol wiki spilled the beans upper middle class decendant of Barbadian sugar plantation and enslaved labor owners. so he fits right in with Willy. not saying he is r’ist while he maybe open minded his upbringing would have given him certain structures similar to willies
Tom Hiddleston is an old Etonian & University Cambridge graduate and has been privately educated since he was in nappies. He’s the proper posh lad. Benedict’s posh, private Harrow & LAMDA education are from leftover slave owned plantation (former) English colony
Hiddleston and Eddie Redmayne were at Eton with William. Like Idris Elba, he’ll has stepped in for both an ailing Charles and a missing William, but I somehow sense that he’s more about promoting Britain, British performing arts, British film, British sports, and British literacy programs than the royals. He really doesn’t seem that impressed with them.
I’m surveying the visual in this story and mentally contrasting it with the narration from the previous one, about Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, who called young William, “a lion king, sitting on his rock, surveying his pride”….. and I’m thinking, twenty years have passed since William struck someone as a profile in courage, who seems to have known him well at that age, and the man we see today…. Getting handsy and fan-girling a pretty boy on a stage, in a way that exudes purest CRINGE. What the F happened to this guy? Besides marriage and fatherhood?
A man that can’t touch his wife or stand too close to her shouldn’t oughtta get handsey with some other woman’s husband. Regardless, I know he wants people to like him and he wants to be popular, but one can sit back and let people come to them.
Receipts, please. Tell us about some of the winning technology and how it’s in production or even going mass market. Read somewhere that Willy owns Earthshot competitors’ ideas—if that’s the, what’s he doing to bring them to market? Even better would be to bring Earthshot winners onstage.
Earthshot really does seem like a vanity project for Wily to hang out with celebs and talk about himself and his sleep. Bet he took a helicopter home to one of his huge carbon footprint homes.
Earthshot is an independent charity and the grant winners own the rights to their own work. And a search of the winners shows that many have achieved quite a lot. It’s weird to me that William can’t promote that. You’d think his handlers would give him a briefing paper – but then, he doesn’t read.
Thanks, @Euridice, I stand corrected. And you’re completely right: William should be promoting the winners’ ideas, and bringing them onstage.
I also stand corrected about taking a helicopter to this event. Apparently he took a bus, and it looks like the bus might have been empty except for his staffers. Shades of the Flybe stunt. I mean, if plebs like me can get an electric car and have a charger installed in the driveway, why doesn’t Willy invest in at least one EV (modified for security as appropriate) for events like this?
He wouldn’t even need to invest. Charles converted some cars to biofuel and has had some evs for decades. Maybe William took one of the state Bentleys but I doubt it.
For official engagements and secure travel, Charles had a BMW i7 M70 xDrive Protection which is a heavily armored all-electric luxury sedan. He also has several evs for personal use including a Lotus Eletre.
While the state fleet (such as the Bentleys) is not yet fully electrified, in 2024 the Royal Mews initiated the transition, modifying the vehicles to run on biofuels as an interim measure prior to full electrification.
https://evpowered.co.uk/news/king-charles-hits-the-road-in-his-new-lotus-eletre/
https://www.bmwblog.com/2026/05/01/king-charles-bmw-760i-protection-us-visit/
https://electricdrives.tv/the-ev-king-king-charles-is-leading-the-british-royal-family-towards-a-sustainable-future/
https://www.gbnews.com/lifestyle/cars/king-charles-bentley-biofuels-electric-vehicles
Earthshot is and always will be a complete joke. Absolutely nobody takes this busy work nonsense seriously. For certain members of the British public, Benedict Cumberbatch, being one, it has been and will always be extremely vital to be associated or adjacent to aristocracy. It provides Brits with a shortcut to social status, cultural legitimacy, and perceived authority which is overwhelmingly important to them. They and their children always needing to be better than someone else. Benedict is no different. You’re only as good as the company you keep. That association says all I need to know about his character.
Well, Cumberbatch looks like hell. That is what comes with shilling for the biggest asshole in the UK, who thinks he gets final say on whether people can travel there. Don’t know if anyone saw the GB headline yesterday, but it said Pegster will keep H&M from traveling there. Wanker.
I never understood Cumberbatch’s appeal. He has such a vacant face.
But clearly William is enthralled. I’ve only ever seen him look that happy when he’s sitting with Jason Knauf.
Gotta agree! I don’t understand Cumberbatch’s appeal.
Hard agree. BC is deeply homely. I can’t watch anything he’s in.
Yeah. I NEVER understood why people would think he was attractive. And now knowing he hangs out with Royals, particularly William, I know that he’s ugly on the inside too!
He was a good Sherlock Holmes.
But his ‘friendship’ with Will is concerning.
Bendy has also been compared to an otter.
Benedict himself cracked up years ago reading mean tweets on Kimmel. “
“Benedict Cumberbatch always looks like he’s having an allergic reaction to bad shrimp.”
“ If you find Benedict Cumberbatch attractive, I’m guessing you’d also quite enjoy staring directly at a cat’s anus.”
So why can’t Earthshot just keep going? Surely William can afford it.
Didnt demonstrate much curiosity and openness when it came to meeting her mixed race sister in law.
Why is William grabbing Benedict’s arm like that? I’ve never seen him give so much affection to Kate. He likes to be linked up with superstar actors like Tom Cruise and others because he has no stardust of his own and is trying to suck up theirs. It doesn’t work, Willy. No idea why Bendy is entertaining this idiot. He should not. Bendy married a woman and had three sons. Isn’t that enough to prove his heterosexual chops? Latching onto Willy sucks. I won’t watch Bendy’s movies anymore (though I did love Power of the Dog, but the credit absolutely went to the ensemble and the Oscar-winning director, Jane Campion).
But wait- is that Emma Watson sitting next to Willy in the group pic?
Yes, she’s been involved with ES for a while now. It’s disappointing to me but it’s clear that some Brits are cool with Royal charities. And are cool with the idea of royalty. Even Harry calls himself a monarchist. Couldn’t be me.
Jilly, yes it is, but I forgot to call her out for it.
It seems they need to have William adjacent to celebrities to make him relevant or make people a bit interested.
Not sure what to make of Benedict, never cared for him, now I like him less.
Does William have a crush?
So the event was for United for Wildlife, which is an OG royal foundation grift that has nothing to do with Earthshot, but somehow now has something to do with the climate and Earthshot? Was a single coherent statement made about the connection with any of this at all?
Blujfly, Of course not. It’s William, after all. I’m just glad he didn’t start raging about his brother during all of this–did he, though? Because I don’t expect coherence or normal behavior from William.