Kacey Musgraves Brushes Off Criticism Over Giving Prince Harry a High-Five: 'He Went in For It!'
When country meets royalty, protocol goes out the window!
Kacey Musgraves crossed paths with Prince Harry at the Royal Variety Performance in 2015, where she memorably gave the royal a high-five — and immediately received criticism for the casual greeting!
“Apparently afterwards, the guy that works at the label was like, ‘No, no, no,’ ” the singer recalled in an interview with Access Hollywood. “He was like, ‘I can’t believe you gave him a high-five. That’s just unbelievable.’ He’s like, ‘No, there’s a way to address the royal family, and a high-five, going up top is not the way.’ “
However, Musgraves didn’t see what the big deal was. After all, Prince Harry didn’t seem to mind — in a photo from the moment, he has a big smile on his face.
“I was like, ‘I didn’t know. He went in for it, so whatever,’ ” she said.
The Grammy winner, 31, previously discussed the meeting during an interview with the BBC, pointing towards her country upbringing for the informal greeting.
“Okay, so I’m from Texas. I haven’t read the manual on royal etiquette. I didn’t really go to elocution lessons or anything,” Musgraves said. “He came up and he just seemed super friendly, and I put my hand up and he went for it. We had a laugh. And later, when I came back, the label was like, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have done that.’ That was kind of a no-no.”
Musgraves isn’t the only celebrity whose starstruck encounter with a royal led to a semi-awkward moment. During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last year, Shawn Mendes recalled being invited to perform at Queen Elizabeth‘s 92nd birthday concert — and standing next to her in silence for 10 minutes.
While the “In My Blood” singer — whose mother is English — kept “looking at her,” he explained that he didn’t break the ice because “you’re not allowed to speak to her unless she speaks to you first, so it was this 10 minutes of awkward silence.”
“It was super weird,” he continued, adding that the Queen didn’t even look at him once.
And Olivia Colman, who plays Queen Elizabeth in The Crown season 3, gathered the courage to ask Prince William if he watched the Netflix hit about his family — and she admitted that the conversation “didn’t go very well.”
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“He asked what I was doing at the moment before he quickly added, ‘Actually, I know what you’re doing,’ ” Colman reveals on The Graham Norton Show.
“I was so excited and asked, ‘Have you watched it?’ ” she continues. “His answer was a firm, ‘No.’ But he was very charming and very lovely.”
