“He was known for his occasionally racist and sexist remarks — and for gamely fulfilling more than 20,000 royal engagements to boost British interests at home and abroad,” the AP wrote. “He headed hundreds of charities, founded programs that helped British schoolchildren participate in challenging outdoor adventures, and played a prominent part in raising his four children, including his eldest son, Prince Charles, the heir to the throne.”
The BBC, on the other hand, made reference to his penchant for “off-color” remarks and “politically incorrect” humor in its obituary.
The Duke of Edinburgh was well known for his brusque personality and the often disinterested look he had on his face during Royal engagements, but social media users didn’t take kindly to the AP’s character assessment, sharing their brighter opinions of the man.
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But the AP wasn’t the only outlet to choose the unflattering descriptors in their obituaries of Prince Philip.
“The intensely private prince will likely be remembered for his early efforts to help modernize the royal family’s image during a time of great change for Britain and the world, especially at the outset of Elizabeth’s reign in 1952,” NBC News reports. “He also developed a reputation for the occasional brusque comment and crass, if not racist jokes.”
The descriptions come a few weeks after CBS aired Oprah Winfrey’s bombshell interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.
The couple shocked the world in January of last year when they announced they were stepping away from their Royal duties to escape the wave of negative press. In their sitdown with Winfrey, the couple expanded on that decision, alleging a member of the Royal Family asked how “dark” their son Archie would be when he was born because Markle is mixed race. There was outrage to the point that viewers deemed the whole Royal system racist.
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A Sky reporter even confronted Prince William on whether or not his family was racist while he and wife Kate Middleton were visiting School21 in Stratford, east London, to mark children returning to school.
“We are very much not a racist family,” he said.
Queen Elizabeth referred to her late husband as her “strength and stay,” and the U.S. Naval Forces sent Philip off with the message, “To a fellow Sailor, fair winds & following seas.”
After being in and out of the hospital for weeks, Prince Philip died at the age of 99 at Windsor Castle on Friday. He married Princess Elizabeth in 1947 and fought for the Allies in World War II. Philip joined the Royal Navy in 1939, participated in the battles of Cape Matapan and Crete and the invasion of Sicily, and he was in Tokyo Bay in 1945 when the Japanese surrendered.
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