After meeting back in 2007, Prince Harry and professional polo player Nacho Figueras have been like long-lost brothers. In addition to playing polo together to raise funds for Harry’s charity, Sentebale, which aids impoverished and sick children in Lesotho, Figueras and Harry have become somewhat of an inseparable duo, as seen in their many public appearances or even in Figueras’ Instagram tributes to the royal from time to time.
Most recently, the two traveled together for the annual Sentebale ISPS Handa Polo Cup at Singapore Polo Club on August 12. Before the Cup, the two already set sail on their travels as they attended the ISPS Sports Values Summit-Special Edition in Tokyo, Japan.
And although the world might get to know their adorable friendship more during this trip, the two have both been vocal about their incredible bond in the past. “I’ve been friends with him for 12, 13 years now and I’ve seen it all happen right from the very beginning,” Figueras said in an interview with The Ellen Show back in 2020. “He’s a wonderful man, he’s someone that really cares, he’s really committed. He cares about children, he cares about making the world a better place.”
Harry, for his part, even included a few shoutouts to Figueras in his tell-all memoir, Spare. “Thanks and hugs to Jennifer Rudolph Walsh for her always positive energy and soulful counsel, and to Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Chris Martin, Nacho Figueras and Delphi Blaquier, and James Corden for their unwavering friendship and support,” the Duke of Sussex wrote in the book’s acknowledgments.
Find out more about their decades-long friendship below!
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Number One Confidant
Image Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images In Markle and Harry’s docuseries, Harry & Meghan, Figueras talked about being one of the first people Harry trusted to talk about the Suits alum after their first dates, per Hello! Magazine. “[My wife and I] had dinner together and he looked at us and said ‘Guys I met a girl, we’ve just met but I think this may be the one,'” Figueras remembered. “You could tell right away that these were the eyes of someone who had fallen in love.” Awn!!
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A Royal Wedding Guest
Image Credit: CHRIS JACKSON/AFP via Getty Images As any best friend would do, Figueras attended Harry and Markle’s wedding back in 2018 alongside his wife, Delfina Blaquier. “He’s going to be an amazing husband, and hopefully will be a great father,” the Argentinian polo player told Good Morning America. “I can’t wait for him to go to this stage in his life, I think that he’s been willing to get into this stage in his life for a while and I’m so happy that he has found Meghan.”
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What Bonded Them
Image Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images) Also talking to Good Morning America, Figueras said the first thing that bonded the two best friends was their interest in helping others through the Sentebale charity. “My first impression was that this guy really cared, he really cared about this mission and it’s been an honor for me to help him help these kids, it’s been amazing,” he said.
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Friendship on the Field
Image Credit: Stephen Lovekin/Pool/Getty Images As for the duo’s favorite pastime, playing polo together is definitely a go-to. “We’ve been playing polo for over 11 years now,” Figueras told Good Morning America. “He’s a competitive athlete so we always go to each other when we play against each other and we have fun when we play together. In the field, he goes for it, it’s fun.”
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A Support System
Image Credit: Chris Jackson/Chris Jackson/Getty Images for St Regis Hotel & Resorts In addition to being there for Harry when times got rough, Figueras has been vocal about the unfair treatment both Harry and Markle had to endure as royals. “To me, the most surprising thing is that the media and some people are not seeing that these are heroes, we should be treating them as heroes,” he told The Ellen Show. “These guys are taking their time to make the world a better place and they’re all fighting for us. And instead of us embracing them and loving them and cheering them up, we are attacking them. It’s a shame.”
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