Has Prince Edward finally recovered from the disaster of It’s A Royal Knockout? As he celebrates his 61st birthday today, we see if his public image has eventually bounced back – 38 years after THAT storm off made headlines around the world

Perhaps because he is the baby of the Windsor family, Prince Edward has usually remained in the shadow of his older siblings. 

But as he celebrates his 61st birthday today, royal watchers are starting to notice that the once periphery member of The Firm has stepped up in the past few years.

As the Royal Family was reduced following the deaths of Prince Philip in 2021 and Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, before being again cut down last year as King Charles and Princess Kate were treated for cancer, it was Edward who filled the void.

Along with his wife, Princess Sophie, who he married in 1999, Edward has now become a key cog in the royal machine.

However, despite his newfound role in the royal limelight, for some members of the public, Edward will always simply be known for one thing: the infamous 1987 TV show ‘It’s a Royal Knockout’.

It saw the Royal Family members dressed in period costumes in a celebrity tournament at Alton Towers theme park – but the loud and undignified mess quickly became a PR disaster.

To make matters worse, a jaw-dropping clip from the ensuing press conference showed Edward storming out after reporters suggested they thought the show had been a flop.

He was dubbed ‘Prince Brat’ by the Daily Mail’s most celebrated columnist at the time, Lynda Lee-Potter, for his rude manners. 

For many years after, the damage of the event loomed large over Edward as he tried to shake off the mess and rebuild his reputation. 

But could he, 38 years since it was broadcast, finally have achieved just that?

On the recent Channel 5 documentary Edward: 60 Years a Prince, historian Dr Tessa Dunlop said he has finally laid to rest the ghosts of It’s a Royal Knockout, observing: ‘He’s almost on track to becoming something of a national treasure.’

Here, MailOnline looks back at the scandal and explores whether Prince Edward has finally shaken it all off to become a real royal star. 

Even when he was young, Edward was in some ways the black sheep of his family from the beginning. 

Unlike his two brothers Charles and Andrew, military life never suited him and he left the Royal Marines after just four months. 

Only a few months after leaving the Marines he tried to pursue his passion for TV by creating a spin-off show of the hit game show It’s A Knockout featuring Andrew, Fergie, Edward and Anne as the team captains.

To make the PR disaster worse, Edward stormed out of the ensuing press conference after reporters made it clear they thought the show had been a flop.

When he asked them if they had enjoyed themselves but was met by a muted response, he erupted: ‘Well thanks for sounding so bloody enthusiastic. What have you been doing in here all night?’

When he was met by a round of laughter after asking them, ‘Have you been watching it? What did you think of it?’, he simply said ‘thanks’ and walked out. 

According to royal author Ingrid Seward, the Queen Mother – who was about to celebrate her 87th birthday – was incensed by the show, telling her grandchildren she’d spent years building the reputation of the monarchy with the King, only to have them try to destroy it in one evening.

Distinguished royal historian Ben Pimlott described it in his biography of the monarch as ‘excruciating’ and a ‘critical moment in the altering image of British royalty’ because it ‘made the public stunningly aware that a sense of decorum was not an automatic quality in the Royal Family’.

Although on the surface it had been a success, raising around £1.5million for charity, it had been a disaster for the monarchy and it’s reputation around the world.

It had selection of big names such as Gary Lineker, Meat Loaf, George Lazenby, Sheena Easton, Christopher Reeves, John Travolta and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, but the sight of the royal family goofing in costumes presented an image of entitled buffoons.

The pantomime royals led celebrities dressed up in ‘comical’ fashion as vegetables through a never-ending series of obstacle races involving being knocked down and getting soaked. 

Despite winning the event, the usually straight laced Princess Anne looked uncomfortable throughout the entire show. 

However wisely, the Queen and Prince Philip declined to take part, as did Prince Charles and Princess Diana. 

Writing in 1996, the Queen’s biographer Ben Pimlott said the monarch viewed it as a ‘terrible mistake’ but was prone to indulging her children’s passions. 

One source told the author the Queen was ‘was against it’ but added ‘one of her faults is that she can’t say no’.

The guest host, TV star Su Pollard, later wrote it was ‘so cold it was hard to stay enthusiastic, but we had to keep smiling as the cameras kept cutting to our faces’.

The poor weather also made it ‘muddier than Glastonbury’ and affected the electrics.

To make matters worse, the event host, the larger-than-life character Stuart Hall (who presented the TV show from 1972 to 1982) was later convicted of multiple counts of historic sexual assault, which came to light in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Ingrid Seward wrote in her 2024 book My Mother & I: ‘Remembered even now as a national humiliation, the episode remains a sore point for Edward.’

Historian Dominic Sandbrook branded the event a ‘disaster’.

The author and Daily Mail columnist Craig Brown said: ‘The performers did their level best, but it was all so random it wouldn’t have been surprising to find Dr Henry Kissinger popping up dressed up as a tomato, or the Queen Mother appearing as a pork pie. It could have gone either way, but it is remembered as a disaster.

‘Traditionally, members of the Royal Family lend dignity to events, but in this case they lent embarrassment.’

Sarah Ferguson wrote in her memoir: ‘My first high crime in the decorum department occurred in 1987, when everyone still adored me. 

‘It seemed just good family manners to participate, and Andrew and Anne agreed to go on as well. Everybody said it was OK.

‘When Charles and Diana declined the invitation, I remember feeling miffed. I thought they were being most unsportsmanlike, not supporting the Family as we should.’

But although most of the royals took part, it was Edward who carried the can for the failure of the show.

However he eventually dusted himself off and tried once again to make a career in the entertainment world work.

In 1993 the prince launched Ardent Productions, in which he personally invested £205,000.

It floundered in its first year, failing to win a single commission, but in July 1995 there was a breakthrough, with Channel 4 agreeing to let the then earl front a short series on the niche game of real tennis – an indoor pursuit, played with wooden racquets. 

Ardent’s big break came in 1996 with Edward On Edward, a documentary fronted by the prince about Edward VIII, his abdication in 1938 and his subsequent controversial life.

In 1998, at which point Edward was paying himself a salary of £119,000, Ardent moved its glamorous premises in central London to Edward’s Bagshot Park residence near Windsor.

In 2001 it declared a profit of just £30,000 – which was after Edward waived the usual £50,000 yearly rent for its office space in the Bagshot Park stables.

It all went horribly wrong in 2001 when, while making the series Royalty From A To Z for the US market, a two-man camera crew from the company filmed Prince William, Edward’s nephew, at the University of St Andrews.

The move violated a press agreement concerning William’s privacy. There was an apologetic statement from Ardent claiming the filming took place without Edward’s knowledge.

Andrew Neil, then the Rector of St Andrews University, said: ‘The intrusion by the production company owned by the prince’s uncle beggared belief. Even after he had been told they did not leave immediately.

‘But for it to be broken by a company owned by his own uncle, well, you just couldn’t make it up.’

Edward stepped down as joint managing editor and halted his involvement in March 2002.

Meanwhile his wife, Sophie, was also determined to make her career in PR work while she was a member of the Royal Family. 

But her budding day job also came crashing down when she was sensationally caught up in a humiliating ‘sting’ operation engineered by the News Of The World. 

Now referred to as ‘the Harry and Meghan of their day’ for trying to do things outside of the traditional Royal Family framework after the failures of their commercial activities Edward and Sophie eventually became full-time royals. 

And although in the aftermath of the slew of scandals it was thought Edward and Sophie would never recover, they proved the doubters wrong and after nearly 25 years of hard work, are now regarded as valued supporting members of the family. 

The editor of Majesty Magazine Ingrid Seward wrote Edward’s change in the public perception has been a ‘turnaround’.

She quotes a recent YouGov poll which shows he has seen the greatest rise in popularity over time of any member of the Royal Family.

Edward has been just been appointed Colonel of the Scots Guards, succeeding the 89-year-old Duke of Kent – one of the several honours bestowed upon him by his elder brother, the King.

Although Edward is closest to his sister the Princess Royal, he and Charles have grown closer in the past few years. 

On his 59th birthday, Charles made him the Duke of Edinburgh, the title their father had held. 

And last year, Edward was awarded the Order of the Thistle, Scotland’s highest royal honour.

Seward writes in her recent book, which was serialised in the Daily Mail: ‘It is all a fitting reward not just for plain hard work, but thorough-going decency.

‘Edward has seldom enjoyed much positive media attention.

‘Marriage and fatherhood have matured him – he credits much of this to his wife Sophie – but he still lacks the spontaneous warmth deployed so successfully in public by his elder brother the King.

‘He can certainly come across as rather thoughtless, much like his siblings, but that is not entirely his own fault.

‘The royal offspring of his generation were raised to have everything done for them from the complicated to the mundane.

‘No wonder Edward likes order and expects things to be done properly.

‘He is said to find the whole business of being royal very constraining at times but has learnt to live alongside it, unworried that everything is done for him.

‘He can sometimes be arrogant but he is never openly condescending towards people.

‘He is kind and has a self-deprecating sense of humour. He writes his speeches himself and delivers them with humour.

‘If his words seem to be falling flat, he simply presses on, protected by the mantle of royalty and secure in the knowledge that sooner or later he is certain to raise a laugh.’

And although it might have taken the full 38 years since It’s a Royal Knockout, the public are now starting to see Edward as more than just that failure. 

It has been a long, long wait, but it looks as though Prince Edward is finally becoming a real royal star.