King Charles' Sausage Fingers

About

King Charles' Sausage Fingers refers to the thick-looking fingers of King Charles III of the United Kingdom, which many find to be unusually and perhaps frighteningly large. While Charles has long been criticized for the size of his fingers, memes about them became especially prominent following the death of his mother Elizabeth II on September 8th, 2022, and Charles' subsequent accession to the throne, particularly a close-up image of his hands in a photo where he was wearing a grey suit.

Origin

In a 1948 letter to a former teacher, written shortly after Charles was born, then-Princess Elizabeth II reported that he had an "interesting pair of hands for a baby."^[1] In a letter shortly after his son Prince William was born, Charles wrote to a friend that the boy had "sausage fingers just like mine," indicating that the source of the large fingers may be genetic. Other possibilities include a purported cardiovascular condition or arthritis.^[2]

Charles has long been mocked for his large fingers online dating back to at least 2011. For example, various tweets and commentary from the early 2010s survive on Twitter, including one posted by user @JiggyJulie on April 6th, 2011 (shown below).^[3]

Charles' fingers also were satirized by the British press and comedians, including by the Twitter account of the comedy show "Have I Got News For You," which joked about Charles' fingers on September 4th, 2015, earning over a hundred likes in roughly seven years.^[4]

Spread

Aside from sporadic discussions online about his abnormal fingers, a November 24th, 2019, photo taken of Charles during a state visit to the Solomon Islands later became a common point of reference for those joking about his fingers because it displayed them quite prominently.^[5] For example, Twitter user @deYook commented (seen below) on the fingers on June 2nd, 2020, using the photograph, earning almost 170,000 likes in two years.^[6]

Following his mother Elizabeth's death in early September 2022, memes about the fingers of Charles III were posted widely online. For example, the Twitter account @knigcharles_III (a parody account of the monarch) posted a tweet about the fingers on September 11th, 2022, earning over 1,300 likes in a single day.^[7]

Various Examples

External References