The New York studio audience chanted “Harry! Harry!” However, monarchists in the UK are likely to view the bawdy exchange as another blow to the dignity of the royal family.
Prince Harry was on his book tour on American late-night television on Tuesday and faced questions about a trip to the North Pole that left his genitals frostbitten.
He appeared unimpressed and amused by the interview with comedian Stephen Colbert, who marveled aloud: “No one in my life as a child could ever explain to me that one day the Duke of Sussex would say the words ‘dick pillow’. for me and it would all make sense. It’s absolutely surreal.”
Harry’s book Spare went on sale Tuesday. Publisher Transworld Penguin Random House said 400,000 hardcover, e-book and audio copies were sold in the UK on day one alone. Harry had promoted current affairs with interviews on British broadcaster ITV and the American series 60 Minutes, which had the best viewership of the season with a total of 11.2 million viewers.
But an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS was more of a gamble. Colbert once toasted President George W. Bush at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner and has built a television career mercilessly taunting politicians and the news media.
Not surprisingly, the host couldn’t resist picking up a passage in which Harry, 38, describes how a visit to the North Pole left him with mild frostbite in his penis, which lasted during his brother’s wedding to Kate.
“Can you explain how the royal standard got Frostnip?” asked Colbert with obvious pleasure. “Show us through. Take all the time in the world.”
Harry replied, “Can I have something to drink? How long have you been waiting to ask that question?”
Colbert said, “Since I read the book yesterday.”
In what is sure to be a first for a member of the royal family, Harry said, “We took quite a leap from grief and trauma to my todger.”
Colbert said, “Todger. That’s a very soft word. love spear. Sounds like a nice nickname. You know my friends, this is Willy, this is Todger, this is John Thomas.”
Then he asked: “How did it catch the frost? Why didn’t you take care of the royal jewels?”
Harry laughed and said context mattered. Colbert said, “The context of that is you’re going to the North Pole and it got really cold. When did you realize there was a crisis at the South Pole?”
The audience roared. Harry insisted, “It didn’t turn into an icicle.” He explained that he had been on a walk to the North Pole with military veterans and had taken all the right gear, except for a “rooster pillow” to keep warm.
The show also got off to a merry start when Harry was greeted by two uniformed trumpeters at CBS Studios in New York. He said: “Stephen, no need but thanks, I appreciate it.” Colbert replied, “What are you talking about? That’s nothing for you. Wait, get out of the way. He’s coming!” Then Hollywood star Tom Hanks appeared and Harry threw flower petals at him.
Colbert later poured Harry a glass of tequila and learned he was watching and “fact checking” the Netflix drama series The Crown. But he also covered serious ground, asking if Harry thinks the royal family is actively campaigning to undermine the book.
“Of course,” he said, adding that the British media did the same. “But that’s the other side of the story, right? After 38 years, they have told their side of the story. That’s the other side of the story, and there’s a lot in there that might make people uncomfortable and scared.”
As an example, Harry gave his memories of his service in the British Army in Afghanistan. He writes that on his second tour as co-pilot and gunner of an Apache helicopter, he killed 25 Taliban fighters without feeling ashamed of his actions. Some veterans and military leaders have said that releasing a head count goes against an unspoken military code and potentially increases the security risk for Harry and the British forces.
Questioned by Colbert, the Duke defended the disclosure, claiming that it had been distorted by the media without context. “Without a doubt, the most dangerous lie they have told is that I somehow boasted about the number of people I killed in Afghanistan.”
He continued, “I would say if I heard or heard anyone brag about something like that, I would be furious. But it’s a lie and hopefully now that the book comes out people can see the context. It’s really disturbing and very disturbing that they’re getting away with it because they had the context. It wasn’t like there was just one line here. They had the whole department. They ripped it off and just said, here it is, he’s bragging about it… and that’s dangerous. And my words are not dangerous, but the twist of my words is very dangerous.”
Colbert asked, “Dangerous because it makes you an elevated target — those around you that you love?”
Harry agreed, saying, “That’s a decision they made.”
The Duke explained that after nearly two decades of working with veterans around the world, his motive was to be honest and share experiences without shame. “My whole goal and attempt to share this detail is to reduce the number of suicides.”
In the book, Harry recounts how his father broke the news of his mother Diana’s death but did not offer a hug. He also shares details about his anger at the British media and his strained relationship with William and his wider family, which deteriorated after he began a relationship with Meghan Markle, the mixed-race American actress whom he married in 2018.
When Colbert delved into that aspect, Harry joked to the studio audience, “Kind of like group therapy.”
Colbert himself was 10 when he lost his father and two teenage brothers in a plane crash. He has spoken about grief with interviewees including Joe Biden and CNN host Anderson Cooper. He asked Harry, “If your mother were still alive, do you ever think about how she might handle this moment?”
Harry replied, “It’s impossible to say where we would be now, where those relationships would be now, but there’s no way that the distance between my brother and I would be the same.” He said he had Diana’s presence in the felt more in the last two years than in the last 30.
He mused, “She died at 36 and I was 36 when this all started, like in January 2020, when my wife and I said basically enough, we can’t handle this, we can’t deal with this, we’ve got to do something carve other. So that was an interesting time overlap.”