Rod Stewart backs King Charles, Skynews on Trump jibe
skynews: Rod Stewart turned a charity celebration at the Royal Albert Hall into a brief political aside on Monday, May 11, 2026. At The King’s Trust’s 50th Anniversary Celebration in London, the 81-year-old singer congratulated King Charles on his four-day trip to the USA and then added a line widely taken as a jab at Donald Trump.
Stewart told the monarch, “May I say, well done in the Americas,” before saying, “You were superb. Absolutely superb. You put that little rat bag in his place.” King Charles appeared to smile at the remark. For a room built around a royal charity milestone, the comment pushed the evening into live tabloid and political territory in a single sentence.
Royal Albert Hall remarks
The setting matters because the event was not a campaign stop or a press availability. It was The King’s Trust’s 50th Anniversary Celebration, and Stewart’s praise of Charles landed in front of an audience that had gathered for the charity’s milestone, not for a Trump verdict.
The line carried extra weight because Trump organized Charles’s state visit to the USA from April 27 to April 30, 2026. Stewart did not name Trump in the room, but the “little rat bag” phrasing was quickly linked to him, especially after Stewart said last year, “I’m not a great fan of Trump.”
Trump and Stewart
Stewart’s criticism was not a one-off outburst. In a Radio Times interview last year, he said, “I knew him very, very well. I used to go to his house.” He also said, “He’s always been a bit of a man’s man. I liked him for that. But he didn’t, as far as I’m concerned, treat women very well.”
He then drew a line between the older relationship and the current one: “But since he became President, he became another guy. Somebody I didn’t know.” When asked if he still saw Trump as a friend, Stewart replied, “No, I can’t any more. As long as he’s selling arms to the Israelis – and he still is,”
What the clip changes
Rebecca English posted the video on X, which helped turn a private-feeling exchange into a public one. For Charles, the moment was a clean applause line at a charity gala. For Stewart, it was a reminder that celebrity remarks can still land as political signals when they are tied to a president and a royal audience in the same breath.
The bigger takeaway is simple: Stewart did not just praise the King; he used the occasion to restate where he stands on Trump, and he did it in front of a room that would understand the reference immediately.
