Taylor Hawkins: Remembering the time Prince Harry slapped Foo Fighters drummer in the face

Fans are sharing favourite memories of the musician

Foo Fighters fans are remembering the time Taylor Hawkins was slapped by Prince Harry, following the drummer’s death aged 50.

On Friday (25 March), a statement was shared on the band’s Twitter announcing that the musician had died.

“The Foo Fighters family is devastated by the tragic and untimely loss of our beloved Taylor Hawkins,” the band said.

“Our hearts go out to his wife, children and family, and we ask that their privacy be treated with the utmost respect in this unimaginably difficult time.”

Following the announcement, fans of the band shared their favourite memories of Hawkins on social media.

One such story was that of Hawkins being slapped by Prince Harry at a 2014 event, which Hawkins explained while appearing on The Howard Stern Show last year.

Joking that it had “p***ed me off, actually”, the drummer said: “We were playing somewhere in England and we’d just flown over and literally had had like two hours sleep and we were doing a show in some ambassador’s back yard or something.

“He walked in, Prince Harry, and he had a bunch of his people around him. He goes, ‘How you doing?’ and I’m like, ‘I can’t wake up, so tired. I gotta play, I can’t wake up.’”

Harry meets Hawkins (right) and the members of Foo Fighters in 2014 (Getty Images)

Hawkins then described the royal slapping him around the face with a “bam” noise.

“I went, ‘You motherf***er!” he said. “And then his two guys are right there. He was like, ‘You awake now?’ or something like that. I was like, ‘Yeah.’

“I got slapped in the face by the prince. That’s OK really, if you think about it. But in the moment, I was like, ‘You f***ing slapped me, dude.’”