Prince Harry jokingly apologized to Canada on Thursday for wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap while watching the Dodgers play the Toronto Blue Jays during the World Series.
After apologizing, he explained in an interview with Canadian broadcaster CTV News that he was “under duress.” “I didn’t have much of a choice. The owner invited me to the Dodgers dugout. I was doing what I thought was the polite thing to do.”
Prince Harry and his wife Meghan attended Game 4 of this year’s Fall Classic at Dodger Stadium on Oct. 28, where they watched the Blue Jays tie the series with a Los Angeles team, but the Dodgers ultimately clinched the title in Game 7.
“When I’m losing a lot of hair on the top of my head and I’m sitting under a floodlight, I’ll wear any hat I can get my hands on,” Harry joked while donning a Blue Jays hat.
“Game 5, Game 6, Game 7, I was always a Blue Jay,” he added. “Now that I admit that, it’s going to be pretty hard to come back to Los Angeles.”
Canada won the World Series last month and in early November, with the country’s only MLB team, the Blue Jays, coming agonizingly close to defeating the mighty Dodgers.
Prince Harry, the son of Canada’s head of state, has long-standing ties to Canada, even though he is no longer a member of the royal family. However, he currently lives near Los Angeles, his wife’s hometown, and has ties to both teams.
He dubbed the incident “Hatgate” after it sparked a long thread on Reddit and criticism in Canadian media.
The prince was in Toronto on Thursday, ahead of Memorial Day on November 11, where he met with local veterans.
He later attended an event honoring the Canadian Armed Forces, where he also addressed the “elephant in the room with the blue hat.”
“All kidding aside, this city will always mean a lot to me,” he added.
Meghan lived in Toronto for seven years while filming the hit legal drama Suits, and the city hosted the 2017 Invictus Games, which was founded by Prince Harry.
The couple stepped down as working royals in 2020 and also briefly lived on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, before finally settling in Montecito, California a few months later.
