Prince William's poor eyesight helps stave off stage fright

LONDON • It seems that even princes are not immune to stage fright. In a new BBC documentary, Football, Prince William And Our Mental Health, the Duke of Cambridge shared that although he has spent a lifetime in the public eye, he still gets nervous when addressing a crowd.

Rather than trying to imagine the crowd as inanimate objects, he says that his solution is not to see them at all.

"My eyesight started to tail off a little bit as I got older, and I didn't used to wear contacts when I was working, so when I gave speeches I couldn't see anyone's face."

Blurry vision, it appears, has given Prince William a confidence boost when giving speeches.

He said in the documentary: "It helps because it's just a blur of faces. You can't see anyone looking at you, and actually, that really helped with my anxiety."

Prince William also opened up on several other personal topics in the programme, including losing his mother, Princess Diana, at the age of 15, and his fears on fatherhood.

Football, Prince William And Our Mental Health was released on BBC One on Thursday. It is part of a larger campaign, #HeadsUp, a partnership between Heads Together,a mental health initiative led by The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and The Football Association, the governing body of association football in England and the Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man.

The initiative aims to encourage more dialogue on mental health, especially between men, through football, the "national sport" of the United Kingdom.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 30, 2020, with the headline Prince William's poor eyesight helps stave off stage fright. Subscribe