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Prince William joining Taylor Swift and Jon Bon Jovi on stage to sing Living on a Prayer has gone viral on TikTok.
The Prince of Wales would later admit to "cringing" at the moment he belted out the karaoke favorite at the Centrepoint Gala Dinner, in London, on November 26, 2013.
William is a patron of the homelessness charity and thought his time in the spotlight had come to an end as he sat watching Bon Jovi perform when Swift turned and said: "Come on William, let's go and sing."
"To this day, I still do not know what came over me," he told Apple Fitness+'s Time to Walk podcast in December 2021.
"Honestly, even now I'm cringing at what happened next, and I don't understand why I gave in. But, frankly, if Taylor Swift looks you in the eye, touches your arm, and says, 'Come with me...' I got up like a puppy and went, 'Yeah, OK, that seems like a great idea. I'll follow you.'"
The moment was shared on TikTok where it was liked 13,300 times and viewed more than 51,000 times and showed Swift and William giving it their all.
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William told the podcast he did not even realize ahead of the event that Swift and Bon Jovi would be there and was looking forward to the dinner when she pulled him on stage.
"I turn up and Jon Bon Jovi and Taylor Swift are at the event, which nearly knocked me off my feet.
"And then I went inside, met everybody, a lot of handshaking to do these nights, a lot of chatting. I try and be charming and interactive.
"When I sat down to watch Jon Bon Jovi do his performance, I thought: 'That's it. My job is done. I'll get a dinner in a minute and I might be able to have a chat to some people and, you know, I'm off-duty a little bit now'."
And he hinted Swift taught him an important life lesson about being willing to forget about whether he was embarrassing himself.
He said: "I think we've got to the stage in this life where we do micromanage ourselves.
"We do worry about: how do we look on social media? Who said what about me? What am I wearing? There's so many pressures, but I think that making a fool of yourself is OK.
"It's OK to not take yourself too seriously and have those moments where
you let go and you just go: Do you know what? I'm OK with this."
Jack Royston is Newsweek's chief royal correspondent based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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About the writer
Jack Royston is Newsweek's Chief Royal Correspondent based in London, U.K. He reports on the British royal family—including King Charles ... Read more