Video of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, at an event near their home in Montecito, California resurfaced online recently and has royal watchers talking about an awkward moment when the duchess joined the duke on stage

Here’s more on why some commentators are describing what happened as “cringe-worthy.”Royal commentator Kara Kennedy was a guest on Sky News Australia’s The Rita Panahi Show and broke down what’s going on in the clip that was shot in May 2022 following a tournament at the Santa Barbara polo club.

Meghan walked on stage to present her husband and his Los Padres teammates, including the duke’s good friend Nacho Figueras, with a trophy. But Panahi pointed out that after that the duchess stayed up there and things got awkward as she appeared to vie for a spot in between the players when no one was acknowledging her. The TV presenter also noted that Meghan “tried to grab” an item from one of Harry’s teammates, but he refused to give it to her. “The whole thing is a catastrophe and very embarrassing” for the “image-conscious couple,” Panahi opined before asking Kennedy what she made of the whole thing.

Kennedy replied: “This is interesting because I think I’ve spoken a lot in the past two months about the kind of press crusade that Harry went on after his memoir Spare and about how important it is that Meghan stayed 50-50 way, at all times. “I think it is very telling because for a woman that usually tries to weave her way in or push [or] shove her way into the spotlight at any given time, which is very visible here. I mean, this had nothing to do with her.

It’s obviously very awkward. It’s obvious that very clearly she wasn’t meant to be on stage.” According to Kennedy, it wasn’t a PR opportunity but Meghan must have seen it that way. She believes it was “telling” that the duchess was at the polo match but didn’t join Prince Harry when he began doing his promotional tour for his memoir that was released months later.

“This is why I think the Spare stuff is even more telling because Meghan knows that the full outcome from Harry’s memoir is going to be embarrassing for her and going to be kind of bad image-wise, so she stayed away from that kind of PR crusade,” Kennedy claimed. “Whereas stuff like this (polo match), where he is trying to get his own thing, he’s trying to get into local sports with the local team … she just can’t help but kind of crowbar her way into the photo.”

This was the same event in which the pair made headlines for packing on a little PDA before Meghan was seen wiping lipstick from Harry’s face. It also occurred just days before the Sussexes’ first trip back to London together for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.