Prince Harry was back in the limelight Friday evening for the Living Legends of Aviation Awards after dismissing his libel suit against a UK publisher to “focus on his family.”
The Duke of Sussex, 39, was honored at the Beverly Hills, Calif., event for his skills as a helicopter pilot during his decade in the British Army. He is also a recipient of the flying wings, which he earned after completing an eight-month pilot’s course at the Army Aviation Centre.
John Travolta — with whom Harry once shared a “friendly encounter” alongside wife Meghan Markle at his book release party — presented him with the aviation award.
The “Spare” author quipped when he took the stage that the “Saturday Night Fever” star, 69, continues to reminisce about the time that he danced with his late mom, Princess Diana, at the White House.
“Look at us now, it’s great,” he said. “If we’re not going to dance together, we’re going to fly together.”
Harry’s solo appearance at the award ceremony — sans Markle — came just hours after he dropped his claim against the Mail on Sunday after suing them over a story that accused the royal of lying about offering to pay for his own police protection in the UK.
The article in question was published in February 2022 and still has a headline that reads, “How Prince Harry tried to keep his legal fight with the government over police bodyguards a secret … then — just minutes after the story broke — his PR machine tried to put a positive spin on the dispute.”
Harry’s spokesperson told us earlier on Friday that the duke is waiting to hear whether the Royal and VIP Executive Committee “acted lawfully with regard to his security.”
“His focus remains there, and on the safety of his family, rather than these legal proceedings that give a continued platform to the Mail’s false claims all those years ago,” the rep added.
Harry has maintained that he, Markle, 42, and their two kids, Archie, 3, and Lilibet, 1, are unsafe when they travel to the UK and they need more protection than the private security for which he already pays.
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The duke argued via his attorneys in January 2022 that his immediate family “has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats” in the UK.
The Sussexes were stripped of their tax-funded security following their bombshell “Megxit” in 2020, when they stopped being working members of the royal family.
The couple moved to California that same year, and have been raising their children there ever since.
However, Harry claimed during a recent trial hearing that he still considers the UK his “home.”
He said last December that the region is “central to the heritage of [his] children and a place [he wants] them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the US.”
