All men must sometimes get tongue-tied.
It turns out that even the Khaleesi herself can’t keep her cool around the royal family. When Emilia Clarke met Prince William earlier this year it wasn’t quite the smooth meeting of the monarchy that you would expect. While she was initially super cool about meeting him, she became an awkward babbling mess when he actually appeared and we don’t blame her.
While on Late Night with Seth Meyers, the Game of Thrones actress was asked about whether or not she had attended the royal wedding (she wasn’t invited unfortunately, though she did skip a Star Wars screening to watch it on a livestream). Then, the conversation quickly turned to her meeting with Prince William at Kensington Palace earlier this year.
When asked by Seth Meyers how it went, she responded immediately, ‘It was good!’
And then promptly paused for a long, awkward moment while she pulled a pained face. So basically, it was anything but.
‘It was good,’ she repeated, ‘Um, so it’s kind of a frightening thing going to the palace. It’s a whole - it’s a thing. And when you’re there, i was kind of just relaxing and then they were like he’s gonna come in, Prince William’s going to come in. And so I was like, 'Oh cool, I’m really relaxed and everything’s going to be fine.'’
However just seconds before the future King was set to step into the room, Emilia was hit with a long list of royal family rules that she had to stick to for their meeting. From addressing Prince William with the correct title to even the way she stood, it sounds like the poor girl could have used a heads up in advance rather than springing it on her at the last second.
She said, ‘They were like, ‘You can’t turn your back. And you need to address him as Your Royal Highness.’ So I was like, I’m going to address him as Your Royal Highness. And then after that you can say Prince William and there are lots of formalities you kind of need to adhere to. And for whatever reason, because I was so scared, i couldn’t manage to get out your royal highness. And it was kind of like a...your royalllasfblealll.’
Oh Emilia, we’ve all been there. Okay, well, not all of us have had the opportunity to meet Prince William, but we have definitely been tongue-tied at the most inopportune moments before. If anything, we’re surprised that Prince William wasn’t more flustered to meet her as apparently Game of Thrones is one of his and Kate Middleton’s top TV choices for their cheeky takeaway nights.
Seth later joked, ‘I kind of like that they said, ‘You can’t turn your back.’ Is that something they say about everybody or just about you?’
Emilia laughed and continued, ‘No, exactly. ‘We’ve heard what you’re like.’’
Well if you’ve ever seen a recent episode of Game of Thrones, you wouldn’t trust Daenerys Targaryen as far as you could throw her either. Here’s hoping that Emilia hasn’t accidentally started an all-out war between the royals and Westeros after slipping up her greeting. We’re putting our money on Meghan Markle winning a standoff against Drogon wearing bespoke Givenchy battle armour.
