Rose Matafeo recalls excruciating Meghan Markle exchange at Royal Variety Performance

Comedian performed ‘bad Christmas cracker jokes’ on stage, but said that the ‘irony’ was ‘really lost’

Rose Matafeo has recalled her excruciating experience of meeting Meghan Markle at the Royal Variety Performance.

In 2018, fresh off her win for Best Show at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, the New Zealand comic and Starstruck creator performed in front of the royal couple at the London Palladium.

Appearing on the Dish podcast, Matafeo told hosts Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett about playing the gig in front of “a sea of white-haired people”.

“Gorgeous, gorgeous audience expecting comedy, not expecting the sort of whimsical anti-comedy of myself,” she said. “I did really bad Christmas cracker jokes, which were intentionally bad.

“Many people came up to me afterwards going, ‘Stay at it.’ ‘Keep going, girl.’ So I think the irony of it really was lost.”

Matafeo then added that Prince Harry and Markle had been in attendance. “It was Harry and Meghan as well,” she said. “She kind of glided over. It was almost like she was on a hoverboard.

“She glided over like Mrs Danvers, and she was like, ‘You must be so proud.’ And I was like, of what? Of dying on my a*** in front of f***ing royals? Yeah, I’ll be writing home about that.”

Harry and Markle attend the 2018 Royal Variety Performance (PA)

Matafeo, 31, was named Best Show of the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018 for her special Horndog, which she later recorded for HBO. She returned to the festival this year with a work-in-progress hour exploring where she is in her life now.

In a recent interview with The Independent, Matafeo opened up about her return to the stage and described which parts of her life she wanted to share with comedy audiences.

“When I used to do stand-up earlier on in this country... there was a bit more freedom to be quite vulnerable and personal, because people didn’t know who the f*** you were,” she said. “Now, if I’m talking about personal stuff, people are like, ‘What’s the goss?’”

‘When I used to do stand-up earlier on in this country… there was a bit more freedom to be quite vulnerable and personal because people didn’t know who the f*** you were' (Supplied)

The comic also talked about whether she plans to explore more political comedy on stage, joking that she was at the time waiting for her indefinite leave to remain visa, so was “gonna shut my mouth for a good amount of time until I very nicely embed myself in the country, and then I can possibly start”.

However, she added: “As a person who’s moved here and is setting up a life here, I think you feel – which is the problem – a little disempowered to have a say. The more I try and find community here... that hand-in-hand comes with a stronger confidence in having a political voice.”