To paraphrase Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun, although the idea of having a king might seem silly to Americans, it couldn’t be more different for Brits. Millions in the U.K. are raised from birth to worship the Royals like deities, happily hand over their hard-earned cash to fund their lavish lifestyles, and probably let them use you as a footrest if the opportunity ever came up.
All that is to say that if you were a random supermarket worker and the King of England wandered into your store then you would be forgiven for feeling overcome with patriotic pride at His Majesty deciding to get his cut-price carrots from your place of work. Even so, actually fainting when it comes to your time to shake the monarch’s hand is probably something you’re never going to live down.
Yes, someone actually passed out upon meeting King Charles. As TikTok user bazhingaaa put it when sharing the immortal moment, “he couldn’t handle the King’s aura.”
The people of TikTok sympathize with the stumbling supermarket man; clearly, the king’s aura is off the charts. “Almost passed out 14 scrolls ago because I felt the aura,” quipped one commenter. “When you develop so much aura you unlock conqueror’s haki,” wrote another. Speaking of, can we appreciate Charles’ Jedi powers for a moment? As one user put it: “King has so much aura he even tried to force pull him back up.” Still, it has to be said, our guy’s aura score took a massive hit with this one: “-50000 aura points (falling in front of the aura king).”
Although it’s going viral again now, this incident actually occurred in January 2020, when the then-Prince Charles and future Queen Camilla were visiting an Asda store in Avonmouth, near Bristol, to thank them for their hard work at the beginning of the pandemic. Believe it or not, it really is just how it looks. Delivery driver Norman is said to have become overwhelmed by the occasion and briefly fainted. However, Royal aides attended to him and he quickly came around. In a touching gesture, Charles checked in on Norman after the event and shared a few words with him in order to check he was OK.
As of September 2023, a YouGov poll found that 60% of Britons had favorable opinions of King Charles as their supreme ruler, so Norman can’t be the only one who’s gotten a bit wobbly at the knees in his presence. Maybe the monarch-in-waiting thought he was volunteering to be a footrest?