Prince Harry turned plenty of heads when he rocked up at Alexandra Palace to watch the World Darts Championship back in 2014. The Duke of Sussex, now 40, was there with a few of his mates, but, being a member of the Royal Family, also brought a formal security team with him.
According to former PDC chief Barry Hearn, his entourage insisted that Harry’s face was only allowed to be shown on the big screens three times. Speaking on The Barry Hearn Show, the 76-year-old said the prince and his friends were “great fun”, but admitted he couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the Royal.
“He’d just come out of the army and he’s obviously on a bit of a bender, I think,” Hearn said. “He brought three mates along. They were great fun.
“And at one stage, the crowd started chanting. The rules were quite strict. We were allowed to put his face on the big screens just three times during the evening, just a flash.
“So he was having a proper night out with his mates, having a few pints, enjoying himself. And the crowd started chanting: ‘Harry, Harry, give us a wave’. And he looked at me and I saw a bit of inquisitiveness in his face – as if to say, ‘What do I do?’
“And I looked at him, and said: ‘If you stand up now and you wave back to these people, your street credibility is assured for life because you’ve identified with the normal man, the people that form the majority of this country’. And he looked at me and said: ‘I don’t think I’m allowed to’. And I thought that was quite sad.”
In his autobiography, Hearn claimed that Harry and his pals downed “60 pints of lager” that night, and later invited the darts chief and his son, Eddie Hearn, to join them for an afterparty at a swanky London nightclub.
“They proceeded to consume dozens of pints of lager and merged in with the crowd rather well. Harry was like any ordinary bloke on a night out with his mates,” Hearn wrote. “Eddie and I joined them on a table of six and it was clear they were on a bender. I reckon 60 pints of lager went down and I didn’t have much of it.”
He continued: “At the end, Harry said they were off to a nightclub and would we like to come? ‘Not us,’ I said. ‘You guys are too dangerous.'”
Hearn Sr, who was appointed chairman of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) in 2001, played an instrumental role in the organisation’s rise to become the number one governing body in the sport. He also helped blast darts into the British and European mainstream, sparking an unprecedented financial boom in the game. In 2021, he stepped down and handed the reins to his son, Eddie.