William jokes about dreams of becoming a DJ and being mistaken for Prince

William joked about being mistaken for Purple Rain singer Prince and his childhood dreams of becoming a policeman or DJ during a surprise appearance on The Graham Norton Show.

The Prince of Wales appeared on an Earthshot Prize edition of the chat show on Friday, alongside Cate Blanchett, Robert Irwin and Hannah Waddingham.

During the show, William insisted that, despite being a famous face around the world, he “quite regularly” meets people who do not recognise him.

He told Norton: “I went to a place in Somerset and was looking around some of the local communities there, and one lovely gentleman looked up at me from his seat and said, ‘When are you going to sing?’.

“I’ve had many requests over many years from all ranging parts of society, and I said, ‘I’m sorry, what do you mean?’.

“He goes, ‘When are you going to sing your performance?’, and the lady behind tapped his arm and went, ‘No, no, he’s not that prince’.

“It turned out he wanted me to sing Purple Rain, which I don’t know the lyrics for.”

Asked whether he ever fantasised about career paths he could have taken had he not been born a future king, William admitted that as a child he liked the idea of becoming a police officer or a DJ.

“I did want to be a policeman when I was younger, I did think I would be a good policeman,” he said.

“And then I went through a phase where I wanted to be a DJ, which didn’t go very well, and I came up with a name, I was called DJ Xara with an X, it wasn’t good.”

William also discussed meeting Taylor Swift backstage at her record-breaking Eras Tour when she performed at London’s Wembley Stadium in June 2024.

The prince said he only recently realised the “significance” of a photo he and his children Charlotte and George took with Swift’s now-husband, American footballer Travis Kelce, which became the first the singer shared of them both.

William joked: “I hadn’t appreciated the significance, and actually, I was trying to move him out of the photo, and he just kept coming back in.

“I kept trying to move him out, so it was just me, Taylor and the children.”

William also shared his family’s love of The Celebrity Traitors, adding that he even touched paranoid faithful Ross Kemp “to see what reaction I got from him”.

He said: “I love it, the family love it. Charlotte and Louis are obsessed with it. It’s really good telly.

“I saw Ross Kemp the day after the first episode and I couldn’t help but try – in the most appropriate way – to touch him to see what reaction I got from him. Turns out he was actually very jumpy!”

William added he “did try” to convince Kemp to tell him who won the series, but the EastEnders star could not be persuaded.

Published: 24/10/2026 by Radio NewsHub