Prince Harry was left "stunned" by a wave of public backlash to receiving a US veterans' award which has seen him labelled a "divisive individual".
Harry had accepted the Pat Tillman Award for service - named for an ex-American footballer killed in Afghanistan in 2004 after giving up his sporting career to serve in the army - in a glitzy Hollywood ceremony earlier this month.
The award is handed to veterans who make an impact through sport, and Harry won the gong for his work on the Invictus Games - but Tillman's mother has called its latest recipient "a controversial and divisive individual", while tens of thousands of people have signed a petition asking for the Duke of Sussex to give it back.
Speaking on The Royal Record, GB News' Royal Correspondent Cameron Walker and GBNews.com's Royal Editor Svar Nanan-Sen described how the calls for a "U-turn" made Harry feel.
Prince Harry accepts the Pat Tillman Award onstage during the 2024 Espy Awards
GettyCameron said: "A couple of weeks ago, he received the Pat Tillman Memorial Award for the service he had given to others when it comes to supporting military veterans with the Invictus Games."
Posing a question to Svar, he asked: "But the mother of Pat Tillman - a US soldier who died in Afghanistan in 2004, only 27 years old - didn't appear too happy with Prince Harry receiving that award, did she?"
The GBNews.com Royal Editor replied: "Pat Tillman was an NFL footballer who gave up a lucrative career - he could have made millions of dollars - after 9/11 to enrol in the army. He did a tour of Iraq and later Afghanistan, where he was killed in 2004.
"Since then, the Pat Tillman Memorial Award has been used to recognise huge acts of service to the military community.
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Cameron and Svar described how the calls for a "U-turn" made Harry feel
GB News
The Duke of Sussex accepted the award despite widespread criticism from the veteran community and Tillman's familyGetty"So Prince Harry was nominated for that award this year by ESPN, and Mary Tillman, Pat Tillman's mother, spoke out and said: 'I am shocked as to why they would select such a controversial and divisive individual to receive the award... There are recipients that are far more fitting.'
"Really strong criticism of of Harry there - and from someone within the military community who also does work with veterans.
"Mary Tillman made her feelings clear that Prince Harry wasn't a worthy recipient in her eyes.
"And sources close to Harry said that he was stunned by the level of backlash that he received after this Espys nomination.
Harry won the gong for his work on the Invictus Games
PA"There was also a petition signed by over 70,000 people calling for a U-turn and for the decision to award Prince Harry the award to be reversed."
Tillman isn't the only one to blast the presentation of the award to the Duke of Sussex; discussing the fallout on GBN America, US Commentator Lee Cohen said the latest controversy facing Harry was a "wincing slap in the face", and claimed he has become a "divisive" figure in both the US and UK.
Analysing how the backlash could affect Prince Harry's possible ventures in the future, Cohen claimed the controversy showed the prince was "not the best asset" for charitable causes anymore.
Cohen explained: "So you can see in the spilling over of that, that Harry may not be the best asset to any charity... He's viewed by the public - by the American public and by the British public - as divisive and controversial."
