X-Men star Sir Ian McKellen doesn’t hold back with snarky remarks about Queen Elizabeth II and her royal family.
McKellen told The Times about his less than pleasant and “very rude” interactions with the late Queen Elizabeth II and shared his thoughts on the British royal family.
“On the few occasions I met her, she was quite rude,” he said.
“When I received a medal for my acting performance, she said, ‘You’ve been doing this for an awful long time.’ I said, ‘Well, not as long as you.’ I got a royal smile for that, but then she said, ‘Does anyone still go to the theater?'”
“That’s a damn rude thing to give someone a medal for their acting performance. It meant: ‘Does anyone care about you, because I don’t. Now go away!'”
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The actor described how the Queen shook his hand at these meetings “with a certain force,” as if she was urging him to leave. “It meant, ‘Go! Go!'” he explained.
McKellen supports Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
McKellen, who spent much of the summer recovering from a fall during a play in London’s West End that left him with a broken wrist and vertebra, took the time to read Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare.
After completing the book, McKellen expressed his support for the Duke of Sussex: “I’m clearly on Harry’s side.”
“Imagine being born into the royal family. I’ve been in public life for a while, but these people are in prison. They can’t do anything normal. Can you imagine having to be nice to everyone you talk to?”
McKellen didn’t hold back when discussing Prince Harry’s retirement from royal duties and his marriage to Meghan Markle, speculating that Harry “probably wasn’t smart enough or didn’t have the right friends to really help himself.”
The X-Men star added: “Although, he had the choice of all the beautiful women in the world. I hope he got the right one.”
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He then shared his thoughts on other members of the royal family. “Imagine being born into the royal family. I’ve been in public life a little bit, but these people are in prison,” he said.
“Hats off to anyone who manages to keep their sanity in this world, as the (late) Duke of Edinburgh managed to do.”
He theorized that the late Prince Philip was “deeply eccentric and, I suspect, deeply unhappy.” He continued his assessment of King Charles, saying the current monarch “is surviving somehow, but he is clearly damaged.”
