Basement Jaxx have spoken about the time that bandmember Felix Buxton rugby tackled Prince Harry while he was dressed in a gorilla outfit onstage.

Buxton recalled the incident in a new interview, sharing that the royal said the experience of being anonymous on stage like that was “one of the best moments of his life”.

In the ’00s Basement Jaxx – completed by Simon Ratcliffe – would have guests wear head-to-toe monkey outfits to wear onstage when they performed their 2001 hit single ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ The song’s music video shows primates playing the track in a lab experiment that spirals out of control.

Buxton told ABC radio show The J Files that Prince Harry was invited to guest as a dancing gorilla during their 2009 Wireless Festival set in London.

“I think he was more interested in Dizzee Rascal [who was going to come perform [‘Lucky Star’] on our third album [‘Kish Kash’],” Buxton said of the prince.

“Anyway, [I] met Harry before the show and said, ‘If you want to be a gorilla on stage, help yourself’.” Prince Harry agreed – and Buxton soon forgot that he’d even offered.

Buxton added that a requirement of being a dancing gorilla was to not overdo it: “Often we say, can you try and get into the part of being a gorilla? Don’t try act like you’re on a stag do.”

But Buxton claimed that the royal got a bit too excited. “[One gorilla] was doing this kind of silly disco dancing,” Buxton recalled. “Often we say, can you try and get into the part of being a gorilla? Don’t try act like you’re on a stag do.

“He said that was one of the best moments of his life. He might look back now and think, ‘Oh god yeah, I was so free’,” Buxton said. “I forgot about it completely and then we’re on the stage. I was running and jumping around.

“So I went over and rugby tackled him down. And after doing that, I looked out to side-stage and saw [security] with a hand on an earpiece. [I thought], ‘Oh god, I forgot! Maybe that’s him?’ It looked like it was serious on a presidential level.”

Buxton later apologised to the Duke of Sussex in the dressing room. “I quite pathetically did a curtsy to apologise for knocking him over. Some kind of repressed colonial indoctrination came out of me in the moment.”

In other news, Prince Harry was reportedly in talks to host Saturday Night Live.

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