With his wife, the Queen, Prince Philip went on a day tour of the London borough of Barking and Dagenham when they stopped by Chadwell Heath Community Centre where the 94-year-old made the gaffe to end all gaffes.
“So who do you sponge off?” He asked the members a woman’s network that meets at the centre.
Luckily for the royal, the ladies took his comments in good humour as they spoke to reporters after his visit, “The Duke said to us ‘who do you sponge off?’ We’re all married so it’s our husbands.”
They added: “”He was just teasing and it’s similar to what I call my husband – the wallet.”
The head of the women’s network, Nusrat Zamir, revealed, “He also said to us ‘do you meet to have a gossip?”
Nusrat defending their work by explaining to the press: “It’s a familiar question, a lot of people say what the Duke said but we do a lot of work. When we organised a fair in March that took a lot of organising and time.”
Despite the awkward comments, The Queen and her husband toured the facility with great interest, sharing jokes and chatting freely to the members.
One of the guests said,”I told Philip I’m a professional fundraiser and he said ‘do you have any friends left?’ I said ‘not many’.”
The Duke of Edinburgh gaffes are unbelievably cringe-worthy, but we wouldn’t have it any other way!