Must Watch
Introducing… The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace
Scott Bryan investigates the inside story of one of the world’s most bizarre and ballsy reality dating shows.
In early 2013 a group of twelve unsuspecting American women were flown to a sumptuous Elizabethan estate in the heart of the Berkshire countryside, where they competed for a chance to win the affections of one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. “Oh my god,” shouts one of the contestants as their suitor arrives by helicopter, “That’s Prince Harry!”. The Bachelor Of Buckingham Palace tells the gripping, entertaining and unsettling story of how Fox duped a group of women into believing they were dating a man who was fifth in the line to the British throne.
Listen to the full series now on BBC Sounds.
- Duration:
- 32m
- Broadcast on:
- 09 Aug 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. Millions of people have lost weight with personalized plans from Zoom, like Evan, who can't stand salads and still lost 50 pounds. Salads generally for most people are the easy button, right? For me, that wasn't an option. I never really was a salad guy, that's just not who I am, but new work for me. Get your personalized plan today at noon.com. Real noon user compensated to provide their story. In four weeks, the typical new user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those owners to your contracts, they said, "What the f*ck are you talking about? You insane Hollywood s*ck!" So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up for three months plus taxes and fees, primarily for new customers for limited time. Unlimited more than 40 gigabytes per month slows. Full turns at Mint Mobile.com. Hello, must watch listeners. It's me, Scott Bryan. This is not a usual must watch. Haley is not here. We are not reviewing TV. Instead, this is a special preview of the first episode of a new series. That I have been working on. It's called The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace. And it looks into the very real and very surreal dating show. I want to marry Harry. It was when a whole set of people duped a group of American women into believing that they were dating the world's most eligible bachelor, Prince Harry. And trust me, there was a lot to unpack it quite a lot. So here is a taste to episode. You can listen to the full series now on BBC Sounds. Are you tired of dating households? Do you want a prince charming? If so, we're filming a reality show. Sign up here. I was 24, 25 years old. I had just gone through an awful breakup. I was just starting off my art career. And so everything just kind of time-wise worked out perfect for me. Reality TV is exciting. It is a promise that, for six weeks of filming, you'll be transported to another world. Get to meet people you'd never usually meet and have a once in a lifetime experience. I was working as a shock girl or someone that promotes liquor and brands. And it was a really fun, easy job. And I actually met the casting agent of the show through one of these promotions. This very outgoing woman, I remember she had this crazy hat and very colorful dress. And she approached my friend and I, and she basically said, "Oh, you two have such great personalities." The idea that you can stumble into an adventure picked out of the crowd because you have something special is intoxicating. So we were told the show we were auditioning for was called Dream Date. And we weren't really given any more information besides that. For the first audition, they flew us out to LA. And I think it was two or three days long. We just met with different producers. We met with the PI. We met with a shrink to make sure we weren't absolutely out of our tree. And it was kind of a bizarre experience. It's only later when you're caught up in the moment. I'm down to go on an adventure and not really ask a lot of questions and probe into the layout of the show. That you realize you maybe should have forced it through a bit more. Dear Lord, what have I signed up for? Oh, wow. This opening sequence is ridiculous. Imagine you can see the screen in front of me. Picture the intro for a new reality dating show. I promise you, you've seen this type of sequence a thousand times before. There's frantic cuts, nauseating transitions and dramatic sound design. The location of this particular series is a huge mansion called Engelfield House, most famous for being used in the Netflix show The Crown. It's your typical old-school British estate. Inchica architecture, a long pebble drive and huge lawns just incredibly grand. It is exactly the kind of place you would imagine a prince to live. We now see a group of women arrive in fancy cars, who look very impressed by the new surroundings. And here, the ultimate fairy tale. This could not be worn on the antique. It's a tree. So we're now seeing the first big moment we're about ten minutes in. Something's happening. Wait, what? Too many people are moving. I don't know how to feel about this. Really, we have secret agents now. There's a helicopter that arrives on the site as the contestants are having an afternoon tea, and it's been like deliberately there to draw up more and more commotion. I mean, it's all very exciting. And we're like, holy crap. Is this him? Oh my gosh. Is that what I think it is? Twelve American women are awkwardly standing on the lawn of this huge, stately home. They've been flown over for a bachelor-style reality dating show. Nothing new, right? Well, there's a twist. These women were going to be dating the world's most eligible bachelor. Furred in line to the British throne. Prince Harry. Yep, that's right. Prince Harry. I know, I know, it sounds completely mad. No one in their right mind would fall for it. I mean, it's Prince Harry. But let me set the scene for you. This is 2014, and reality TV is a completely different beast. The show's a chaotic, and the vibe is very, very competitive. No, I don't trust anybody here. Like, I don't understand why I know and get that. And it's like, it's so annoying. Just don't judge me. You've known me now. The Bachelor and Big Brother have been big successes and have kept people hooked. But TV producers need new ideas to keep the genre going. Audiences want higher stakes, bigger reveals, and more bizarre twists. And it's a producer's job to give that to them. The only real thing on this reality show is you. At the same time, these shows are getting older and older. 2014 is also the year that I'm cataloging all of this weirdness during my day job as TV editor at BuzzFeed. My job involves scouring the internet and writing up the weirdest shows out there. Because if you is love watching them, then people love reading about them. One morning, I got this email from one of my US colleagues. The message is short. It basically says something like, "Have you seen this nonsense that Fox has just announced?" With a link to an episode of a new TV show, I don't ask any questions. I simply hit play. And that's how I end up watching these women standing on the lawn in front of a massive manner as a helicopter hovers in the distance. Right, 2014 have a might need a bit of explaining too. Forget the devoted husband and proud father, mental health advocate and outspoken interviewee you know today. This Harry, well, he was a bit of a lad. Just a couple of years before, he spent a world weekend in Vegas where he indulged in hot tub parties and was packed butt naked after a game of strip billiards. He's single and his love life is constantly being scrutinized in a stream of sensational press articles. This Harry is a prince. But it's not like a regular prince. He's a cool prince. Maybe the kind of royal who would agree to take part in a totally bonkers reality TV show. I mean, it's not that likely. I know. But maybe? Right? I'm Scott Bryan and you're listening to The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace. The ridiculous true story of 2014 reality show, I Wanna Mary Harry. Episode 1, The Fairy Tale. Right back to the TV show. We've just finished watching the opening 10 minutes of the strangest series I think I've ever seen. The Observer listeners amongst you would have noticed that despite my excellent world building, we are not in fact in 2014. We've now jolted forward and I'm recording this in 2023. And in another clever piece of podcasting trickery, I am not alone whilst I'm rewatching this series. Now I'm not narrating the TV show out loud to myself. Could you imagine how annoying that would be? I'd never interrupt a TV show. I have my producer Natalia with me. Hello, Natalia. Hello. Natalia and I wanted to watch this series together again because we wanted to answer a few very important questions. Who made this thing? How did it get made? And how could anyone have believed it? We all know by now that if there's a serious mystery to be solved then podcasting is the way to solve it. So here we are. It's every girl's dream. Rich. Handsome. And for those who dream big enough. I mean, come on. Wouldn't you want to know how this made it to her? What I want is to find that perfect guy. I have a feeling he's British. It's like Beauty and the Beast. Do you feel like a princess or something? All of these women just going over to the UK to find love. I've been in the UK living now for 32 years, being from here. And I've not yet found love. Why? I don't get why these women... I think in this journey to be honest. It's very strange. I told you to have a green entrance and he is in a helicopter. And there he is, the star of our show. With his distinct red hair dressed up in his typical tan khakis and a white button-up shirt. He's being shuffled off a helicopter by his security. I guess it could be Prince Harry. Especially if you, like these women, are standing a football field away from him. You would basically need binoculars to see him properly. You can probably guess it by now. I'm afraid whoever this man is, he is not further in line to the British throne. You see, underneath all the trappings, he's not a prince at all. Just an ordinary boy who looks a lot like Prince Harry. Oh my god, so on the screen, it's just come up and said that he's 99% Prince Harry. They make it look like CSI by tracking parts of his face and saying that things look like exactly like Prince Harry. And now you see an actual image of Prince Harry and him on the screen. But it still does not look convincingly like him at all. This guy might possibly be Prince Harry. I don't think it's Prince Harry. I mean, it can't be. Well, she's not wrong. But see, this is part of the producer's plan. This guy doesn't need to be a perfect match. He only needs to be just good enough that it would be believable for people who aren't surrounded by pictures of the royals at all times. And let's be honest, if the producers can pull this off, they know they'll have a big TV hit in their hands. See, a few years before the series was filmed, Fox did a similar thing with a show called Joe Millionaire. The premise is simple, a group of women date a pretend rich guy before the final episode where it's revealed that he is, in fact, a working-class Joe. Needless to say, I wanna marry Harry as a step up from that original idea. We've gone from somebody impersonating a rich version of themselves to someone impersonating an actual living, very real and completely different person. And not just anyone, a prince. I have to convince them I'm Prince Harry, but the goal is for them to like me for who I am. The lucky Lefario who gets given the role of Prince Charming is Matt Hicks, an environmental consultant with an unusual sidekick as a Prince Harry lookalike. I have wondered before what it would be like to actually be Prince Harry. For me, going by his accent, he already seems pretty posh. But the intro makes him out to be a pauper. The producers seem to be saying, "This is a common man who has jumped up the chance to become a prince and date's twelve beautiful Memican women." Look, I know this is a podcast so you can't exactly see him. In fact, if you're listening on a phone, go on and Google him right now. He looks a bit like Prince Harry. Emphasis on a bit. But the full twelve women on camera? If I'm honest, it's a bit harder to believe. But I could be wrong. I'm not just here to meet Prince Charming. I want to marry Prince Harry. ♪ It's nice now after ten years has gone by to look back and to revisit that time in my life. I think for the first few years right after the show, I was still processing everything that had happened. This is Kimberly, one of the two contestants we heard at the start of the show. In 2013, Kimberly was trying to make it as an actor in New York. It's safe to say reality TV was not something she was looking to do. It's pretty well known that you don't want to be on a reality TV show if you want to be taken seriously as an actor, but my friend who was also on the show, she was very interested in auditioning for it. I ended up going to the audition to be there for support. So way back in the day, when I was like 2122, I had auditioned for The Bachelor. And I didn't get cast. Being in reality TV was always something that I was interested in doing. This is the other contestant you heard at the beginning of the podcast, Meghan, an artist from Dallas. I always thought that I would make great reality TV. So my best friend told me that he had signed me up for the show. And I was super excited. I was single and it felt just like a great opportunity. One, to potentially find love. And two, also a great opportunity to further launch my career. You see all these girls on The Bachelor and Bachelor Rhett. They're on a couple of episodes. They get a couple of million followers and making six figures from posting stuff on Instagram. So I figured it was kind of a win-win. ♪ Eventually, both Kimberly and Meghan get a call to come an audition for the show. It was actually very odd. I remember it was a rainy day. We had a trek into the city. And it was in this building, which looked like someone had been living in it. To me, it seemed a little bit sketchy. And I wasn't really sure, you know, how legitimate this whole thing was. I wasn't really nervous being interviewed. It was more just odd. You know, I'd never have said a cross from, you know, a man in 60s, 70s and had him ask like, "So, have you ever sent anyone, you know, a newdy?" They asked a lot about past relationships, what I was looking for in a relationship. Things about myself, what I like to do, goals that I have, funny things that I've done in my past. And I remember at the end, they had asked us to do a little dance for the camera, which I thought it was just horrific. It's like you're worse nightmare if you have any sort of social anxiety. Yeah. What did they ask you to dance? I have no idea. It was like a 10 second, like cheesy little dance. There was no music. I'm like, "Oh God, this is absolutely embarrassing." And it was really terrible. I just remember saying to myself, "I am not doing this." Whatever this show is, I want nothing to do with it. It was a couple weeks, maybe like three to five weeks after the audition in LA that we found out that we were officially cast for the show. I think it was a day or two before we were scheduled to leave that they told us where we were actually going. I was in the car with my dad and I got the email and I'm like, "Dad, where is we're heading?" And he's like, "Oh God, what kind of show are you filming?" You think you're going on these dating shows? You're going to be on these like in these luxury elaborate hotels and in these amazing destinations. And that's not redding. No fits to anyone who lives in redding, but it's no like Abu Dhabi or Paris or, you know, a Ritzy city like that. No, to listen to that side of the UK. Ritzy is a fairly anonymous town just outside of London. That's perhaps most famous for its annual rock festival where members of the crowd routinely throw bottles of human piss at the performers they don't like. No, really. Anyway, with the auditions over, the lucky 12 women are flown out to their dream date destination, redding in Berkshire, England. All of us girls were flown over to the UK separately and drivers met us all individually and drove us to the hotel. And the drivers weren't allowed to speak to us. And I asked them like, "You know, so where are you from?" Ma'am, I can't talk to you. Okay, well, how far away is the hotel? Ma'am, I can't speak to you. So we check into this real shitty, off the side of the highway, a hotel. They had taken our phones immediately. We were not allowed to have any form of entertainment. No magazines, no television, no music. You're sitting there, day after day, kind of going stir crazy, wondering what exactly you had gotten yourself into. The producers went through my bags and they went through every single item I had packed. They checked the pockets of my pants, they like turned things inside out, and they confiscated anything that they didn't want us to have. The only real contact we had was with the room service boy. And he was even told that we weren't really allowed to talk to him besides like, "Thank you, can I have a Diet Coke, or if it's something like that?" No phone, you're in a crappy roadside hotel, and you can't even flirt with the room service guy. But overall, I was pretty excited. By now, I've already told you a bit about what, quote, unquote, "Harry" looks like. It feels a bit rude to describe Kimberly and Meghan, but I suppose it'd be helpful if you knew how to identify them too. They look like you'd expect contestants on an early 2010s reality dating show to look, vivacious, beautiful 20-some things. If it helps you differentiate between them, Meghan has a kind of Mila Kunis vibe, and Kimberly reminds me of a young mini driver. The only other thing I'll say, from my very British perspective, is that they look quite American. You know, great teeth, a passion for life, that sort of thing. But the producers haven't just chosen these American women because they're pretty. They've chosen them because they figure, even though Americans love the British royal family, they probably don't know a huge amount about what they look like. Natalia and I observed as much during our rewatch of the show. Well, we're the same age, so we grew up with seeing Prince Harry on the screen, and we always saw him in the papers, and, you know, he's a familiar face to us, and I'm wondering if he wasn't so familiar to the people involved? If it had wishes contestants or contributors, they can part it never would have worked. Yeah, 'cause now the American's obsession with the British royal family, it's pretty high at the moment, I think. You know, with things like The Crown and Harry marrying Meghan and the documentary and everything that happened there, the average Americans exposed to a lot of Prince Harry now. But I wonder if it was different in 2014, like, how much would they really have known about him and, you know, what he looked like? Yeah, totally. I mean, I think it feels like we're in a new age, aren't we, with the royal family? And also, I think, like, in the US, for a long time, there's been this mentality of marrying into the British royal family, would be the most amazing best thing. And I think we've seen in recent years, that's not really the fairy tale ending, is it? I mean, think about it. If you're not from the US, how well do you know what? The presidential family look like? Or the family of the Canadian Prime Minister? Why would you even need to know the information? Unless, maybe, you're part of a particularly competitive quiz team. When I wanted to have a first debut on our TV screens, the press were not kind to these women, or they were a pallet lack of knowledge about what Harry looked like. An article from the UK newspaper for Telegraph described the show as, "fodder for the brain dead." Vanity Fair wrote, "This show is basically one giant con." Things were a bit more sympathetic on Twitter, but not much. A lot of people are saying, "I want to marry Harry Styles." Great start. I would 100% apply for that. Could you imagine? I want to marry Harry. TV Gold, TV Gold. I can't stop watching. I want to marry Harry on YouTube. Someone says here, "I'm baffled why I'm watching. I want to marry Harry for the second week in a row." Anyone else watching? I want to marry Harry. They are making me embarrassed to be an American girl. I want to marry Harry. Isn't doing anything for the stereotype of Americans being stupid, and it just gets worse from there. Are these girls dumb? Crash gullible stupid bitches. Oh, that works. It's fucking hilarious that these two penny tarts, two penny tarts, were so idiotic that they actually fight. It feels incredibly misogynistic and demeaning. People have very mixed feelings about the show's producers, too. I want to say this is catfishing on the whole new level. This should be illegal. It's so bizarre to me that somebody paged the idea of psychologically abusing women, and then that the idea became a reality show. I'll admit, we all love a guilty pleasure TV show. But even I felt a bit guilty whilst we were watching our one and marry Harry. I found myself laughing at, rather than with these women. And then I started to feel bad about feeling guilty, so I tried to justify it to myself. How can someone believe this? Surely you have to be incredibly gullible to think that you're actually dating a prince, even if you don't even know what Harry actually looks like. It's only as Natalia and I continue watching that we start to see just how well orchestrated the ruse is. The producers have clearly put an immense amount of effort to convince these women that they were dating Prince Harry, and no expense was spared. This is definitely the royal treatment. Oh, wow. Well, if the date of a royal can't be treated well, then how can she? A date with a royal? Did I say that? Oh, my God. From the very first episode, you can see how hard everyone is working to create this bubble, where Matt is Prince Harry. There's the grand house, the lavish dinners, the butler, and the security with their black suits and airpieces, lurking in the back of every shot. Everything down to the napkins has been meticulously designed to be royal. Well, just royal enough to convince the contestants that it's real. Take this moment, for example. The contestants are having a relaxing afternoon tea out on the lawn with Harry, and out of nowhere there's this screech of car tires, and suddenly having a surrounded by his bodyguards, who quickly whisk him away due to a supposed security breach. All of a sudden, you hear all, like, the gravel flying everywhere, the security guard runs out of the car. What? We need to take your service. Come here, Matt. You'll come now, right now. See you next time. Throughout this process, there'll be a few instances thrown in the mix that will keep them gossiping about whether or not I am Prince Harry. In another one of these stunts, during a different date, Paparazzi are lurking in the bushes trying to snap a picture of the prince in his new love interest. The confused couple kind of just stand there watching, whilst his security guards tackle the paps to the ground. He's obviously someone that people know really well. It wouldn't surprise me if he is Prince Harry, and I'm going to be in a magazine, scandalous girl in the woods with Prince Harry. Every episode, there's a gimmick or trick used to maintain the illusion that Matt Hicks really is Prince Harry. They even mocked up fake family photos. I mean, talk about commitment to detail. During a breakfast date with one of the girls, Sir goes out for a well-timed bathroom break, leaving their contestants to wander around his room and stumble upon a doctored picture, showing Matt with his brother the real Prince William. With this photo-shot image of myself and my royal brother, I have to convince these girls that I am Prince Harry. This is so weird. She's now gone to the loo, and she's just... Oh, come on. So she's now walking over to a picture in the corner. Oh, my God. Like, no way. Is that who I think it is? Where they photoshopped in Prince William to make it seem that they are together. Oh, come on. Is that you and your brother? Yes. We're really close, so I just take it around. Okay, this is, without doubt, the most messed-up breakfast I've ever seen in my entire life. ♪ Soon enough, as you watch the show, you realise the women are intentionally leaning into the concept as well. They might not know if Harry is real, but they do know that they're all competing to become a princess and have to prove that they're princess material. It's embarrassing for everyone involved. But that's the thing about these type of guilty-pleasure reality shows. We know they can be mean, but we can't help but continue watching the car crash as it unfolds on screen. I think this is the main reason this TV show has stayed with me for all these years. I could never work out how women, like Kimberly and Meghan, felt about being involved. Did they know what was happening? Were they in on the joke, too? Or did they fall for it and become a laughing-stop for viewers on both sides of the Atlantic? As Natalia and I watch the closing credits of the first episode, I can't help but wonder, what impact does a show like this have on the people who take part in it? And what does I want to marry Harry? Tell us about how reality TV has changed in its constant quest for higher ratings and bigger audiences. ♪ As I'd soon find out, the answer to those questions would be unlike anything I'd expected. ♪ Coming up on this season of The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace, I woke up one morning and I had these four words in my head which were, "I want to marry Harry." And I thought, "How about a dating show where a group of American women get the chance to marry Prince Harry?" There are so many questions about a show like this, because it's so odd. It was prison. It was absolutely prison. In fact, I think Martha Stewart probably had a better time in prison than we did filming. I didn't care what narrative they spun. I was just so happy that I was leaving. They had one of the producers come into my room. She was acting as if she were a fake therapist. "Are you okay? You know, is this really getting to you?" And kind of scaring me into changing my perception of everything. ♪ The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace is a production of energy in motion and best boot sheet. It's reported and hosted by me, Scott Bryan. For energy in motion, the executive producers are Anna Ayora and Hammed Tagan. For the spoochie, the executive producers are Daniel Turkin and Johnny Galvin. ♪ Our incredibly patient series producer is Natalia Rodriguez. Thank you, Natalia. The story editors are Matt Willis and Thomas Currie. Thomas Currie is also the managing producer. Audio recording by Tom Berry at Ward or Studios. Audio mix and sound design, but either manly. ♪ I hope you enjoyed this taster episode of the Bachelor of Buckingham Palace. If you want to listen to the rest of the Bachelor of Buckingham Palace, you can do so right now on BBC Sounds. ♪ Hi. I'm Graham Klass, host of Technically Speaking and Intel Podcast. Join me for season two as we explore the future of technology evolving today. In each episode, I'll speak with the minds transforming medicine, health care, retail, entertainment, personal computing and more with the help of AI. Join me every other Tuesday and explore the latest technology changing our world today and creating a more accessible tomorrow. Listen to, Technically Speaking and Intel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.