Prince William Spotted Declining Call From What Appears to Be an Encrypted App During Soccer Game

Prince William didn’t want to be bothered as he filmed Aston Villa celebrating their win against Freiburg earlier this week.

A video of William, 43, circulated on X that showed him declining a call through what appeared to be the Signal app as he recorded the team lifting their trophy in the air.

Signal is an encrypted messaging app that allows users to send private texts, make secure phone calls and share disappearing messages. It’s an app popular among government officials because of its privacy and security features.

William has dealt with privacy concerns involving his phone in the past. In the early 2000s, his phone was hacked by multiple times by journalists at Rupert Murdoch‘s News of the World. He eventually settled outside of court and received an undisclosed amount of money.

Signal previously made headlines when Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reportedly used a group chat in Signal to discuss sensitive military operations in Yemen and accidentally included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic. Others in the chat included Vice President JD Vance, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

On March 24, 2025, Goldberg wrote that he “knew two hours before the first bombs exploded” an attack on Yemen was coming from the United States.

“The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East,” he continued.

Hegseth, 45, later reacted to the allegations and told reporters, “I’ve heard how it was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that.”

The incident sparked widespread backlash and investigations in the use of Signal for sensitive government communications. However, Hegseth was never criminally charged with anything.