Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams has questioned whether Prince Harry has demonstrated an aptitude for “service” in recent years.

There has been outrage over Prince Harry being awarded the Pat Tillman Award for Service. (Image: Getty)

There has been outrage over Prince Harry being awarded the Pat Tillman Award for Service, which he will receive in a ceremony on Thursday. However, 70,000 people have already signed a petition urging the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) to “rethink”.

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The Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards (ESPY) are regarded as the Oscars of the sports world.

The Pat Tillman Award is particularly special. Pat Tillman was an outstanding American professional football player who enlisted in the army after 9/11.

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He was tragically killed by friendly fire in an ambush in Afghanistan in April 2004. His mother, Mary, who is not involved in choosing the recipients of the award, has condemned the choice of Prince Harry, calling him “a controversial and divisive individual”.

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In a statement, issued because of the controversy, the ESPN claimed it had wished to reward the “incredible” work done by Harry in creating the Invictus Games.

They were based on the Warrior Games in the United States and help wounded and disabled members of the armed forces, both currently serving and veterans.

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In normal circumstances, he would be the perfect choice. The ceremony, on July 11, is being hosted by the tennis champion Serena Williams, who is a close friend of Meghan.

It was only in January that Harry was mercilessly mocked for being named a “Living Legend of Aviation”. He did indeed undertake two tours of duty in Afghanistan, the first as a forward air controller and the second as an Apache co-pilot and gunner. However, including him with the likes of astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong seemed farcical. Some senior military figures in Britain said so publicly.

No one disputes the importance Harry places on being part of the military family. He is also a Global Ambassador for Scotty’s Little Soldiers, for bereaved military children.

He has said that his work in the military gave him a sense of purpose in the traumatic years after his mother’s tragic death and he spent a decade serving which he has said, “made me who I am”. He claimed it was then that “I committed to a life of service”.The Award he is receiving is for service. Yet events have shown he has a deeply destructive side to his character.

He married Meghan in May 2018, yet by September the following year, when in South Africa, the Sus𝑠e𝑥es announced their unhappiness as senior working royals to a shocked world, which was eager to know more.

In January they blindsided Queen Elizabeth with their bombshell announcement which eventually led to them stepping down as senior working royals.

Subsequently, Harry lost his honorary military titles. Since he no longer holds any positions, honorary or actual, in the military, he has no right to wear a uniform and he wears civilian dress for official events.

When Queen Elizabeth made clear that it was not possible for the Sus𝑠e𝑥es to combine the half-in half-out role they wanted with “a life of public service”, they retorted: “We can all lide a life of service. Service is universal”. They were, in effect, telling the world’s most experienced head of state that they knew more about service than she did, which was both impertinent and farcical.

Then came their revenge as they felt they had been badly treated. Their interview on Oprah was broadcast when Prince Philip, who was 99, was gravely ill. He died soon thereafter. It has been compared to a nuclear attack on the Palace. The inaccuracies it contains have become notorious, but it was monstrously effective at the time.

It was to be followed by Harry and Meghan, the six-hour two-parter on Netflix which also contained damaging attacks on the Commonwealth.

Harry’s memoir, Spare and the interviews he gave which promoted it, deepened the already wide public rift in the royal family and led to the Sus𝑠e𝑥es eviction from Frogmore Cottage, their base in Britain.

Their unofficial spokesperson, Omid Scobie, has since been totally discredited. However, what amounted to a guerrilla war against the royal family, where the Sus𝑠e𝑥es ruthlessly monetized their royal connections and revelled in their unpredictability, did lead to a fall in the support for the institution among the young and appalling publicity worldwide, especially on unproven claims such as those dealing with race.

All this is a very strange example of the concept of “service”. It also says a great deal about your character if you trash your family publicly for over three years. Harry, however, has a serious problem. Invictus, Sentebale in Lesotho and WellChild were charities he was attached to before his marriage to Meghan.

After they moved to the United States, where last year Prince William was voted the most popular figure by Gallup, he has done very little.

His series on polo for Netflix is unlikely to reach a mass audience as it is an elitist sport. Meghan’s programmes on cookery for Netflix may do better but the lack of A-list endorsements for America Riviera Orchard, her new lifestyle brand, which she has received so far, must surely be worrying.

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She received the Woman of Vision Award last year, though they became involved in a controversial car chase in New York directly afterwards. In 2022, they received the Ripple of Hope Award for their activism on issues linked to racial justice and mental health, but that, too, was contentious.

They have done little of note and I strongly doubt they will be on the next TIME100 list of the world’s most influential people, as they were in 2021. They would have been able to do far more for the causes they believe in if they had remained within the royal family, despite the problems they claim they experienced.

Theirs is not a record of service but of self-indulgence, boosted by awards they have not deserved. Harry has sent a message to competitors in the Winter Invictus next February and will undoubtedly pick up the Pat Tillman Award tomorrow. However, the dispute over him receiving it will mean it is likely to be a very long time before he is offered another. It certainly should be!

• Richard Fitzwilliams is a royal commentator, film critic and public relations consultant. He has given over 1,500 interviews on television. He was Editor of The International Who’s Who, the standard source of its type, from 1975 to 2001.