King Charles Portrait Reveal

About

King Charles Portrait Reveal refers to a viral video of the moment King Charles III unveiled his first official portrait since his coronation in May 2023. Charles' portrait became a viral meme in mid-May 2024, leading to subsequent exploitable memes in which King Charles reveals pictures or videos green-screened over his portrait.

Origin

On May 14th, 2024, the first official portrait of King Charles,^[1] painted by artist Jonathan Yeo, was unveiled at Buckingham Palace. Associated Press^[2] uploaded a video of Charles III unveiling his portrait (seen below), which amassed more than 72,000 views and 310 likes in a week.

Spread

A day after Charles' video unveiling the portrait was shared on the internet, on May 15th, 2024, TikTok^[3] user @igreenscreenthings uploaded a version of the portrait reveal, replacing King Charles III's portrait for a green screen wall (shown below, left), amassing over 16 million plays and 434,000 likes in a week.

The template was then used for memes and jokes on TikTok in which Charles unveils funny or wholesome content, like the video posted by TikTok^[4] user @dollsss_ on May 16th in which the portrait is replaced by a video of a dog (shown below, right). The post amassed more than 1.7 million plays and 23,000 likes in four days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References