‘Impossible to imagine’: 7-second William clip catches out Harry

The Prince of Wales has just been caught on camera somewhere surprising – and it contains a message for his estranged younger brother.

Allez! Allez! Allez!

And there endeth the extent of my withering-on-the-vine schoolgirl French that is applicable when it comes to writing about sport – a shame, because that Prince William of ours has just zipped off to Monte Carlo to barrack for his beloved Aston Villa, and it would add a certain Continental dash.

Or, as an insouciant, Gauloises-puffing Parisian might say, quel dommage. (Now ask me how to buy a one-way train ticket to Lyon or order a glass of white wine. I’ve got the range).

MORE: Prince Williams’ dodgy $1.5b property empire revealed

But no worries, because we have some nice video of William to tide us over, showing him doing some enthusiastic cheering from the stands on Tuesday alongside old mate Thomas van Straubenzee. (They have been attending football games together since Victoria Beckham’s halcyon WAGish heyday).

Prince William is in attendance in Monaco, and will be hoping Aston Villa turn things around 🤴

📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUKpic.twitter.com/hxZyvtPWWR

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) January 21, 2025

It was quite the busy day for the prince, with him jetting to Monaco only hours before doing an official engagement in West London, taking part in a shadow boxing class for at-risk youth.

Who says a modern-day princeling can’t have it all, huh?

However, while William was exercising his God-given right as a Brit to go to Europe to yell about sport, his brother Prince Harry was probably doing something that I’m guessing sits somewhere on the Venn diagram of stewing, seething and trying to journal his way to some semblance of inner calm.

Prince William zipped off to Monte Carlo to barrack for his beloved Aston Villa. Picture: X

He did some enthusiastic cheering from the stands on Tuesday. Picture: X

This week, Harry and his wife Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex have been having a right old time of it with a new Vanity Fair feature story really going to town on their reputations.

Most notably, the piece has revived the damaging claims that have long dogged the duchess, of her being a nightmarish boss who had staffers scuttling off to lie prone in a therapist’s office – or the British equivalent, to reach for a fresh bottle of Tanqueray. (Meghan has

always denied the allegations).

But while it’s the former Suits star’s alleged behaviour that has hogged the headlines, there was still plenty of ammo in Vanity Fair reserved for Harry.

The Duke of Sussex is, by and large, portrayed as a well-meaning, very well-mannered bit of a dimwit who likes horsies and hugging sick children; an adult man who asked for a hot chocolate in a business meeting, who legitimately pitched an idea for a podcast where he would interview sociopaths like Vladimir Putin and who isn’t all that jazzed about that job business.

The couple have been featured in Vanity Fair. Picture: Vanity Fair

The magazine reports that in 2023, after the release of Spare, Harry told a source that he had not heard from the royal family and “hadn’t absorbed the gravity” of what writing the tell-all would mean.

That source said: “The power of the written word, and the power of the narrative … I don’t know if that’s something he understood while he was doing it”.

Elsewhere, a person who worked closely with (and “loves”) the Sussexes commented: “I have no idea what [Harry’s] interests are beyond polo. No clue what his inner life is like”.

“[Harry] looks like the kind of guy who would, frankly, happily work for charities for the rest of his life and would be very happy if Meghan made all the money and he didn’t need to,” someone inside the duke and duchess’ circle told the magazine.

A former Spotify employee told Vanity Fair that the Sussexes “had this idea to do a podcast because they knew celebrities did them … but they had no ideas”.

Meanwhile, a potential employee described the Duke of Sussex during an interview as someone who “kind of didn’t want to be there”.

It’s lucky that the piece slightly nauseatingly reports the Sussexes are still “so hot for each other”, which sounds like a quote from High School Musical, because it also claimed that the duchess’ team had shopped the idea of a “post-Harry divorce” book to a publisher.

Does any of this make it sound like Harry is having a good time? You have to wonder how much one gratitude journal can take, don’t you?

And so that short, seven-second clip of William at the soccer provides a very tidy case of compare and contrast on our hands, of Monaco versus Montecito.

Harry and Meghan have been copping it lately. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP

On the first, we have a prince who is by and large applauded for his ongoing work on mental health, homelessness and the environment, a man who has been diligently plugging away at things, and who can live a life where he can have a nice midweek arvo with the lads.

And on the other we have poor Aitch, a duke who can’t catch a break or make a TV show anyone wants to watch or turn up at a natural disaster and stand around looking sad without coming in for a pasting.

What William at the soccer does is handily throw Harry’s choices and the path his life has taken over the five years since Megxit into blunt relief – it shows up the direction that the duke has taken, far away from the royal family and into Hollywood’s fickle embrace.

It’s the younger of the brothers who might be the more naturally gifted public figure, but he has ended up in a place where he can’t devote himself solely to helping others, with the occasional laddish excursion. He has to sit through meetings without cocoa and pitch ideas in California boardrooms like any other producer on the make while the elder man will never have to worry about sprucing up his rom-com ideas deck.

(It’s also interesting to note that a future King can easily sit in the stands surrounded by the public while the Sussexes, according to the ever-vigilant, ever-negative Daily Mail, travelled in a seven car convoy to go all of a block while in New York in 2023).

Prince William, Prince of Wales also took part in a boxing sparring session during a visits to a charity which supports homeless youth this week. Picture: Hannah McKay/Pool/AFP

There is another lesson that William versus Harry can teach us too, which is about long-term versus short-term. When it comes to horizons, Crown Inc thinks in terms of years, if not decades. Already, the Prince of Wales has established what will be his lifelong legacy projects and is thus dutifully beavering away.

Meanwhile, we have the Duke of Sussex who short-sightedly wrote a 400-page barn-burner of a memoir without, per Vanity Fair, having fully grasped the fact that doing so might come with these unfortunate things called consequences.

While William by all accounts has a temper (not least when he reportedly clocked his brother during an altercation over Meghan’s alleged treatment of staff), it is Harry whose life now seems defined by him reacting hastily.

Reacting hastily and announcing Megxit before the details had been worked out, reacting hastily to needing cash and signing a podcasting deal without having ideas for them, reacting to his family by writing a take-very-few-prisoners memoir and then having to suffer through possibly lifelong repercussions.

As the prince cheered on his long-cherished Villa, it’s impossible to imagine any scenario where the duke might have or ever would go, too. Now that is a massive dommage, in any language.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles

Originally published as ‘Impossible to imagine’: 7-second William clip catches out Harry