Russell Brand: Prince Charles was scared of me

The 35-year-old comedian saw the royal at the Pride of Britain awards ceremony recently and the union didn’t go as well as Russell would have liked.

Instead of shaking the Prince of Wales’ hand politely he took too strong a grip, refused to let it go and ended up frightening the 62-year-old away.

“I was shoved into him [Prince Charles] and I saw a moment in his eyes as we shook hands when he realised, ‘That's that mad comedian,’ Russell said on US talk show Live With Regis & Kelly.

“And he sort of tried to get away. I had him in a bit of a grip. I was holding on, thinking, ‘This is my moment. I'm not letting him go just yet.’ There was a moment where he was trying to recoil and I heard his wrist click a bit. It's so ridden with protocol it's very difficult to relax. You don't want to do the wrong thing and you end up buckling an arthritic wrist.”

Russell - who was promoting his new film The Tempest - divulged that his well-documented charm also failed on the Prince’s wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. When he met her next in the line the only word he could think to exclaim was her title.

Russell confessed the royal-meeting was one of the rare events he felt completely out of his depth and on edge.

“Because I was panicking I just looked at her and went, 'A duchess!' I just shouted at her what she was,” Russell recalled.