Prince Harry turned up solo at Friday night’s One805LIVE! concert/event, held at Kevin Costner’s Carpinteria estate. Harry and Meghan joined the event last year, and both were on stage to honor various Santa Barbara-area first responders. The event is a huge local fundraiser for firefighters, local police departments and sheriff’s departments. There’s music and tons of local celebrities come out. Meghan missed this year’s concert, and it seems like Harry told people that she was sick. I believe it! Covid is going around, as is a seasonal cold. They have two kids who go to school, and schools are germ incubators. Lots of people are sick this time of year, I’m just saying. As for the event, Harry was once again invited on stage, and he presented an award to an air support pilot.
Prince Harry spent his Friday night in Carpinteria, Calif., helping raise funds for Santa Barbara County First Responders. The prince took the stage at the star-filled One805LIVE! concert, hosted by Kevin Costner. The concert helps raise funds for the local fire, police, and sheriff departments, with proceeds going towards equipment and mental health resources.
The Duke of Sussex took the stage in front of hundreds of concertgoers with the night’s honoree, Santa Barbara County air support pilot Loren Courtney.
“As you’ve probably heard already, 22 years [of] military service over 10,000 hours and rarely sees his family because he’s always here flying helicopters,” Prince Harry said of Courtney. After he quipped that Courtney was 65 years old but looked 40, he asked him, “Why do you still do what you do?”
“I do this because I love doing it and I love doing it for the county of Santa Barbara. It’s a rewarding experience whenever we go out, either putting out fires or rescuing somebody in the back country or medical evacuations from vehicle accidents or doing the law patrol, keeping citizens safe,” Courtney replied.
When Prince Harry asked if there was “an experience or a story that stands out” from his years of service, Courtney recalled an experience when he was doing search and rescue in Colorado and helped rescue a group of skiers who had gone off a 30-foot embankment. One of them, he said, suffered a severe head injury and took five attempts to get out.
“I learned in the military, you never leave anybody behind. We got him out. He spent almost a year in intensive care and then rehab, and now he’s walking, he got married. He actually went to the top of the Grand Tetons and, and proposed to his girlfriend after the accident,” the pilot added.
“You didn’t have to rescue him again, did you,” Prince Harry joked. “You are one of the many heroes here tonight. There are people here tonight who are alive because of you and who are back to their families because of you… from everybody here, thank you so much.”
Nice. Harry and Meghan handed out some of the awards last year, and I’m sure they’ll both be invited next year too. I kind of think Kevin Costner has a great deal of affection for the local royals. There were so many other celebrities there too: Cameron Diaz, Zoe Saldana, Pink, Rob Lowe, Richard Marx and more.
I’m also looking closely at Harry’s clothes here – very soft-looking dark-wash jeans, a subtle-striped button-down, a slim-cut sport coat and a necklace. Did Meghan dress him before he left the house or did he put this together himself? It’s really good – casual, but dressed up enough for a fundraiser/concert.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.