Prince Harry’s team were left with their heads in their hands after he took a selfie with a “lunatic” at an awards show, a royal commentator has claimed.

The Duke of Sussex attended the Living Legends of Aviation Awards Show in Los Angeles last Friday.

The event was hosted by John Travolta and other attendees included Jeff Bezos, director Catherine Hardwick, Miss Teen California Taliya Peiris and artist Mimi Stuart.

Harry decided to take a selfie with Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe, who claims to be a distant cousin of the Royal Family.

The head of his German family, Prince Alexander of Schaumburg-Lippe, has warned the Duke to stay away from the controversial Mario-Max, who was once dubbed the “King of Trash TV” and was a contestant on German Big Brother.

He tried to alert Harry that he “cannot stoop lower” than appearing beside the TV shopping channel host in public, adding: “I would advise him to stay away from this man.”

Charlotte Griffiths, the Mail on Sunday’s editor-at-large, called Harry’s attendance “sad”.

She said: “It was pretty low-rent. It wasn’t packed with A-listers, and Meghan didn’t go. She was looking after her kids and she may have dodged a bullet in the end.

“Harry has got his amazing Hollywood PR team around him, I just don’t know what happened in the build-up to this but they appeared to realise that it might not be the best event in the whole world because of the way he went about his appearance.

“It was quite low-key, but he did manage to get snapped with this guy and it’s a bit sad really.”

She went on to say that the picture with Prince Mario-Max would have never happened if Harry was still in the Royal Family.

“There would have been a team of people vetting him. Royal Family members very rarely take selfie because of this exact thing.

“You get some lunatic who has now put the photo all over social media. He will dine out on it for the rest of his life, which is something we know Harry hates.”