File this one under the most unlikely feud of the year. Prince William, future king of England, shared some shady words for William Shatner, former Starship Enterprise Captain.
William was doing an interview with the BBC when the subject of Blue Origin came up. Blue Origin is the company that sent Shatner into space. It’s the brainchild of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
William said he felt the company could be doing other things with its vast resources, like “trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live.”
He didn’t specifically mention Shatner by name, but it was implied enough to get a response from the actor who played Captain Kirk.
Shatner spoke to Entertainment Tonight and responded to the royal’s comments.
“He’s a lovely, gentle, educated man, but he’s got the wrong idea…The point is these are the baby steps to show people it’s very practical. You can send somebody like me up into space,” Shatner said.
Shatner, 90, became the oldest person to fly into space this week when a Blue Origin rocket took him to a suborbital orbit in a flight that lasted about 10 minutes. The previous record for the oldest person in space was held by Wally Funk, 82, who took to the skies on a SpaceX flight.
Before that, John Glenn, a senator and one of the group of the first NASA astronauts in the ’60s, was the previous record-holder at 77.
Shatner is no stranger to people disliking him. His Star Trek co-star George Takei, has been feuding with him for years. The space flight just afforded a new opportunity to revive the rivalry.
He took a shot at Shatner saying he was “not the fittest specimen.”
“He’s boldly going where other people have gone before,” Takei said.
If the point of putting Shatner in space was to draw attention to Blue Origin, the drama is working very well in its favor.