Prince William snubbed actor twice in one night: ‘You need to get new jokes!’ | Royal | News

The Duke of Cambridge met Lee after the Jubilee Concert, which he hosted a section of, and made a brutal joke that the comedian needed to “get some new jokes”. Lee claimed he told William: “Listen, I don’t tell you how to be the future King.” William reportedly laughed and said he was only joking and that he was a fan of Lee’s sitcom.

However, as he was about to talk to him about it, the singer Cheryl arrived and William was “far more interested” in talking to her, snubbing Lee for the second time.

Lee recalled this interaction on The Graham Norton Show, insisting that William was “really nice” despite the snub.

He said: “He came up and he said ‒ you get to go to the Palace afterwards ‒ and his opening line to me was: ‘You need to get some new jokes.’

“And I went, ‘Listen, I don’t tell you how to be the future King.’

READ MORE: Camilla’s reaction to meeting Prince William: ‘I need a G&T!’

“And he laughed and said, ‘I’m only joking, I’m a big fan of Not Going Out’ ‒ my sitcom ‒ and I thought ‘that’s so exciting’.

“And I was just about to talk to him and then Cheryl Cole started talking to him and he was far more interested in her and I had to wonder off.”

Lee also recalled meeting the Queen that night, something which had been an ambition of his since he was a child.

He told chat show host Graham Norton that when he was young he saw the Royal Variety Show and the comedian that was on it had met the Queen.

At the time, he interpreted that to mean this comedian must be very funny if the Queen thought he was good enough to meet her.

Ever since, he had it in the back of his head that he wanted to meet the Queen and then he would have “finally made it as a comedian”.

He eventually got to meet the Queen in a line-up at the Jubilee Concert in 2012.

Coincidentally, he had been writing a memoir at the time in which he had described wanting to meet the Queen and he was determined to get a picture of this moment as a great way to end the book.

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He said: “There was so much pressure. I mean, everyone was nervous about doing the gig but I was more nervous about ending my book.

“So I had to meet the Queen and I had to get the photo.

“And they chucked out everybody ‒ it was such a small room ‒ so the person who was going to take the photograph couldn’t take it.

“She said, ‘I’m being thrown out, it’s just you lot that’s in the show’ so she hands me the camera and I see Alfie Boe, the opera singer, and I say, ‘Alfie mate, don’t mess this up, there’s the camera, you’ve got to get this shot’.”

Mr Norton then brought up the photograph and the audience guffawed because it was not exactly the best phramed image in the world.

Lee is clearly in the shot, but about half the Queen’s head can be seen and Kylie Minogue is at the centre, with Lenny Henry off to the side.

Lee joked: “I was going to change the whole story ‒ I didn’t want to meet the Queen, I always wanted to meet Kylie Minogue and Lenny Henry, and then it might work.”

He added that Kylie had been showing the Queen around, but when they reached Lee, the pop star backed off.

Lee said he thought she did not know who he was and “panicked”, but it meant the Queen was left “stranded on her own” making polite conversation.

He said he saw Her Majesty looking around, clearly thinking: ‘Usually I’m dragged away at this point, but nobody’s coming to get me.’

He jokingly said he asked the Queen whether she was staying at the Premier Inn, in reference to Lenny Henry’s famous TV ads for the budget hotel company.