Prince Harry Lookalike Slams TV Show for Deceiving Women into Believing They Were Dating Royalty

A controversial reality TV show that duped a group of American women into thinking they were dating Prince Harry faces backlash from its stars a decade later. The 2014 Fox series I Wanna Marry Harry followed 12 single women as they competed for the affections of a man they believed was the real Prince Harry. However, it was later revealed he was simply a hired lookalike actor named Matthew Hicks. The women were initially told they were filming a show called Dream Date without any hint of royalty involved.

But the contestants claim producers employed manipulative tactics to make them believe the ruse, gradually "breadcrumbing" them with fake clues and stories about dating a royal. This included leaving newspaper articles about Harry lying around, staging fake paparazzi run-ins, and even feigning security threats that required swiftly returning "to the palace." Kimberly Birch, the season's winner, said on the The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace podcast that the deception felt like "brainwashing" as reality was constantly skewed.

"If every day you are being fed a sh*t burger, and everyone around you is saying 'It's ground beef,' you start wondering if this really is ground beef," she explained. Fellow contestants Meghan Jones and Chelsea Brookshire corroborated feeling lied to and betrayed by underhanded production tactics. They were kept isolated in hotel rooms for days, banned from talking off-camera, and monitored 24/7 - even having cameras in their bedrooms. Hicks, the Harry doppelganger at the center of it all, admitted feeling stressed by having to maintain the lie. He claims he was assured he wouldn't have to deceive the women directly, only for producers to reveal midway that he was "really" Prince Harry. "I was a bit miffed and felt quite stressed. I didn't appreciate the way they done it without telling me," Hicks said, as per The Mirror.

This left him miffed at being put in an uncomfortable position without warning. At the season's conclusion, Kimberly won Matthew's heart only to learn he wasn't actually the royal bachelor. Unbeknownst to them, there was a twist - if Kimberly accepted non-royal Matthew, they'd split a $300,000 cash prize which they did. But the show was swiftly canceled after just four episodes due to poor ratings, with the remaining unaired installments dumped online. While the women felt manipulated at the time, they faced widespread public mockery too. Kimberly was branded "America's most gullible woman" by critics for falling for the ruse.

The show's creator Danny Fenton defended duping the women, arguing he exploited America's well-known "besotted" with the royals to create an enticing premise. He bizarrely claimed the real Prince Harry watched and wished he'd been asked to participate. "I was aware how besotted Americans were with the royal family, and with Harry in particular, so the idea of bringing American women to the UK and putting them in a castle would be a fairytale dream for them," Fenton said, as per The Daily Mail.