Prince Harry apparently used a false accent to disguise his identity in Canada
On Monday morning, Prince Harry joined his grandmother (opens in new tab), Queen Elizabeth II, his father, Prince Charles, and his brother, Prince William, at Sandringham for a summit to discuss the impact of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's decision (opens in new tab) to step down as active royals Discussions will include.
Princess Meghan will join the meeting by phone from the couple's retreat on Vancouver Island, Canada. The Duchess of Sussex (opens in new tab) returned to the quiet area this week following the couple's bombshell announcement.
The Sussex family (opens in new tab) has been holed up in Canada since the vacations, enjoying some downtime away from the public eye before the surprise announcement. During the trip, Harry was very careful to protect their privacy, even disguising his face and voice in public to avoid attracting attention.
Chris Stephen, a clerk at a home store called Lillaberry in Sidney, British Columbia, told the Daily Mail (opens in new tab) about an incident he encountered last month when Prince Harry stopped by to shop for Christmas decorations.
Stephen explained that Harry put on a fake Canadian accent and tried to keep his face hidden to disguise himself. Unfortunately for Harry (opens in new tab), his "disguise" was only to be mistaken for another royal family member, his uncle Prince Andrew.
"I showed him a demonstration of this scarf, and when I took it off, he said, 'Is that real fur? ' And I said, 'No, it's not real, I don't have real fur,'" she said, describing her experience with Harry, who was shopping with another man at the time.
At this point, Stephen said he realized he had royalty in his sights.
"I'm looking at these nice blue eyes with ginger eyebrows. Then he said, "Has anyone ever told you that you look like someone else?" And I said, "I was thinking about him, and he came up with Prince Andrew.
When Stephen identified Harry as royal (opens in new tab) (albeit the wrong royal), his guard asked her if they could move the conversation to a back room for privacy; once they were alone, Harry revealed himself and Stephen's teased him about his mistake.
"I can't believe I said I looked like Prince Andrew," he told the clerk. But don't worry, she teased him in return.
"I told him, 'I'm sorry, I just had a minute.' And he said to me, 'I was disguising my accent and trying to sound Canadian.' And I said, yeah, you didn't do a very good job."[21
Overall, Stephen was totally impressed with Harry and sang his praises in the Daily Mail.
"His mom would be proud of him. 'Because he wasn't pretentious. He wasn't intrusive. He didn't offend. He was willing to allow me to do motherly things."
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