Prince Harry's Colbert Cameo Is The Cherry Of Betrayal Against Kate — But Is Anyone Surprised?
The year is almost over but we can add another incident to Prince Harry's strangest moments of 2025: The prince's appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," on December 3, 2025. If you're wondering why this might have been an odd decision, you've already forgotten about the 2024 saga known as "Kate-Gate." When Catherine, Princess of Wales disappeared from public view in January, after undergoing a mysterious abdominal surgery, she wasn't seen for months. Royal watchers started getting antsy, and conspiracy theories pertaining to her whereabouts ran rampant, with celebrities even weighing in with their own theories, or amplifying those already making the rounds. Notably, Colbert was among them.
During a March 2024 monologue, the talk show host mentioned the scuttlebutt that Kate Middleton's disappearance had something to do with Prince William reportedly having an affair with fellow aristocrat, and her former BFF, Rose Hanbury. "My heart goes out to poor Kate," Colbert said at the time (via Global News), then summarily added, "Now let's spill the hot goss!" When it was revealed that Kate's absence was due to her cancer diagnosis, Colbert apologized for his comments. I could argue that Harry is the forgiving sort and therefore decided to give the comedian another chance, but the prince's contentious relationship with the press suggests he's anything but merciful when it comes to this exact sort of thing.
OMG!!! Harry will be on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert tonight pic.twitter.com/t2zRRlSFoz
— Julieth ❀ (@troubleshade) December 4, 2025
I've closely followed Harry's crusade against the media for years. He blamed the British tabloids for Meghan Markle's miscarriage in 2020. He sued Associated Newspapers Ltd., which publishes prominent British tabloids like the Daily Mail, for grossly invading his privacy. And when the media was smearing Meghan shortly after she entered the royal fold, Harry unprecedentedly released a statement condemning their actions. Shouldn't his reaction to Colbert's behavior have been the same?
Harry has shown a willingness to throw Kate under the bus before
When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took part in their infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey, in 2021, the royal defectors showed a willingness to throw his family under the bus. This amenability to damage The Firm's reputation turned into a major money-making machine for them, including but not limited to the Sussexes' Netflix docuseries and Harry's bestselling tell-all memoir "Spare." It therefore shouldn't come as a surprise that the prince seemingly decided Stephen Colbert isn't on his naughty list for what he said about Kate Middleton. The prince did, after all, taint her reputation in one of Harry's top bombshells from "Spare" when he claimed that she, along with his older brother, Prince William, encouraged him to wear the headline-making Nazi costume to a party in 2005.
As Harry penned, "I phoned Willy and Kate, asked what they thought. 'Nazi uniform,' they said." It was almost as if he wanted to exempt himself from making the decision by passing the blame onto them. Then there was the prince's shocking assertion that his sister-in-law was reluctant to share her lip gloss with Meghan, which, of course, tied into the Sussexes' claims that certain members of the royal family are racist. Additionally, Harry shared text message exchanges between Kate and Meghan ahead of their wedding, positing that the future queen was rude to the bride and left her in tears.
Given all the scathing details that the prince included about Kate in his book, Harry trading jokes with Colbert is hardly shocking. I believe that he has a pretty good idea of how the press and the public operate. He was likely aware that his appearance on the show would spawn opinions just like this one. He did it anyway.