Stuart Heritage is a journalist for the Guardian, mostly covering film, music and television industry news. He was one of two Guardian reporters tasked with the Guardian’s live-blog of last night’s BAFTAs, which was attended by Prince William and his be-gloved wife. Halfway through the Guardian’s live-blog, Heritage dropped in to tell this amazing story about witnessing William’s behavior at last year’s royal premiere of Top Gun: Maverick:

Here’s a fun little story that I think I’m allowed to tell. Earlier this year I went to the Top Gun: Maverick premiere, and Prince William was there. And he did this big long meet and greet with all the film’s stars, who are all American and therefore all automatically a bit iffy on the idea of a monarchy in the first place.

Anyway, during this meet and greet, Prince William kept pointing at his shoes, and the film’s cast all responded by doing this weird noncommittal ‘Oh’ face in return. This is because, it turns out, Prince William was wearing special shoes that had fighter jets embroidered on them.

Imagine that for a moment. You’ve made a film. The film is going to single-handedly revive the global theatrical experience. And here you are, in London, watching the future king of England point at his special aeroplane shoes. Like a child would. Imagine being Jon Hamm trying to think of something to say to a literal prince who is determined to show you his special little aeroplane shoes, because he thinks they will somehow delight you. Imagine it.

Anyway, Prince William is wearing normal shoes today. Good.

[From The Guardaian]

I mean… this is pretty bad. We kind of knew it real time, because the British papers kept talking about William’s special embroidered airplane slippers, but I didn’t know he actually pointed at his shoes repeatedly as he was being introduced to the stars of Top Gun: Maverick. That royal premiere wasn’t even the first time he saw the movie – Tom Cruise gave William and Kate a private screening before the royal premiere. William was so excited to see the movie again that he had special embroidered slippers made for the royal premiere, then he made all of the Americans admire them. Wow.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red, Instar.