WELLINGTON, Fla. (AP) — Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, may have given up their royal duties, but not the celebrity life.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex drew a crowd of media and the wealthy on Friday as he played in a celebrity pro-am polo match to benefit Sentebale, the charity he founded in 2006 for children and young adults who live in the southern Africa countries of Lesotho and Botswana.
Harry, Meghan and their friend, Argentine polo player and model Nacho Figueras, were tailed by a camera crew from the same production company that makes the soccer reality show “Welcome to Wrexham” for an upcoming Netflix miniseries that will focus on polo.
Harry did not speak to reporters. But Figueras said he hopes the show will have the same impact for polo that “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” had for the worldwide auto racing circuit. Harry and Meghan will serve as executive producers.
“We have been working on this for a long time. It was always Harry’s dream and passion to share with the world it takes to be a really competitive polo player at the highest level,” Figueras said.
Figueras, who captained one of the two teams that played the prince’s squad, said before the abbreviated matches he and Harry gave each other a lot of ribbing in recent days over Friday’s competition. They have worked together on Sentebale since 2007.
“We joke a lot about who is going to win,” Figueras said. Harry, he said, is “a very good rider, he’s a very good athlete, he has great eye-hand coordination. He’s very competitive. He’s a very good polo player.”
In Friday’s matches at Grand Champions Polo Club in suburban Palm Beach County, Harry’s Royal Salute Sentebale team beat Figueras’ squad 3-1, with the prince scoring the opening goal. He picked up the ball at midfield — 150 yards (137 meters) from the goal — and repeatedly hammered it the rest of the way, popping it through the goal posts. He also stopped his friend from a possible breakaway, though he let out a loud yelp of frustration when he missed a pass to a teammate that could have led to a goal.
In his first match of the day against Maseru Team, Royal Sentebale won 1-0, but the prince missed an open, in-close shot.
With Sentebale winning both matches, Harry received the trophy for winning the mini-tournament — and a kiss on the cheek — from Meghan.
About 300 spectators attended the matches, part of a fundraising weekend that will raise $1 million for Sentebale, organizers said. Since 2006, celebrity polo matches around the world have raised about $15 million for the charity, organizers said. According to its latest annual report, Sentabale raised about $6 million overall in its 2022 fiscal year, with about half that coming from the United States.
Harry has been estranged for several years from members of his family, including his older brother, Prince William, heir to the throne. Any rift was further exacerbated by his 2023 memoir “Spare,” which recounted sibling grievances including a time he said his brother ripped his necklace and knocked him onto a dog bowl.
Harry quit royal duties in 2020, and he and Meghan moved to Los Angeles, citing what they said was the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media.
Before marrying the prince in a royal wedding watched around the world in 2018, the 42-year-old duchess was a star of the TV show “Suits.” The couple has two children, 4-year-old Archie and 2-year-old Lilibet.