Chelsea Handler Tells Prince Harry 'Penis' Joke At Critics' Choice Awards

Prince Harry came under fire at the 28th annual Critics' Choice Awards on Sunday night, with host Chelsea Handler making reference to his "frostbitten penis" following the publication of the royal's highly revealing book Spare last week.

Handler presented the awards show which saw Brendan Fraser beat out Austin Butler for the coveted Best Actor gong for his performance in The Whale.

During the comedian's opening monologue she introduced a number of nominated film and TV projects including Ryan Murphey's Dahmer series starring Evan Peters and Niecy Nash.

"Dahmer became the third highest viewed show on Netflix, which a combined watch time of 1 billion hours," Handler told the awards show audience. "Which, apparently, is the same amount of time we're going to have to listen to Prince Harry talk about his frostbitten penis. It's enough already."

The disclosure of Harry's penile frostbite has been one of the most talked about revelations from his memoir Spare, which was officially released on January 10. The content of the book, including the frostbite story, was leaked in the press a week earlier when media outlets obtained unauthorized copies of the book, which has broken sales records in the U.K. and U.S.

The prince wrote that one of the lasting effects of his 2011 visit to the North Pole just weeks before Prince William and Kate Middleton's royal wedding was a painful case of penile frostbite, for which he tried an unusual home remedy.

"My penis was oscillating between extremely sensitive and borderline traumatized. The last place I wanted to be was Frostnipistan," he wrote of his experience once returning to Britain.

"I'd been trying some home remedies, including one recommended by a friend. She'd urged me to apply Elizabeth Arden cream. My mum used that on her lips. 'You want me to put that on my todger?'" he continued.

"'It works, Harry. Trust me.' I found a tube, and the minute I opened it, the smell transported me through time. I felt as if my mother was right there in the room.

"Then I took a smidge and applied it...down there. 'Weird' doesn't really do the feeling justice."

The highly intimate revelation sparked an avalanche of online memes and jokes at the prince's expense, including a number who called his home remedy linked to Princess Diana a "Freudian nightmare."

Late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel joined the roasting of Harry after the book's publication.

"He rubbed a smidge of mommy's lip balm on his tallywhacker everybody. That's quite an endorsement for Elizabeth Arden," he said.

"You know, when they say write a tell-all, they don't mean 'tell all.' It's just a phrase."

He concluded: "Next book I think we're going to have to create a little bit more distance between the words mummy and my penis."

Newsweek approached representatives of Prince Harry for comment.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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