Coronation Guest Snaps Selfie with Lionel Richie and Shares ‘Goosebump’ Experience Inside Service
Lionel Richie #LionelRichie
“I was speechless,” Chigozie Anozie exclusively tells PEOPLE of being amongst the 2,200 guests inside Westminster Abbey for King Charles and Queen Camilla’s coronation
Attending King Charles’ coronation left one guest speechless.
Chigozie Anozie, 29, was one of 10 young people inside Westminster Abbey from the Prince’s Trust International, which was founded by Charles in 2015 and aims to help tackle the global issue of youth unemployment.
If receiving an invitation to the crowning ceremony wasn’t surreal enough, it was topped off by a meeting and selfie with Lionel Richie.
“It was super special,” Anozie told PEOPLE of meeting Richie, 73, who is performing at the Coronation Concert at Windsor Castle on May 7.
“I had to smile and take a selfie with him. He was telling me about my costume and that he likes it and that I look smart and great. I was just so happy,” Anozie continued of Richie, who was appointed the First Global Ambassador and First Chairman of the Global Ambassador Group for The Prince’s Trust in 2019.
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He says of the crowning ceremony, “Seeing the royal family walk past, I had a lot of goosebumps on my body. I was so happy. It was so special seeing the King. I cannot explain how felt. I am speechless.”
“It was so amazing. It was very special for me,” Anozie adds. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing something like this in my life, so it was great to see. I’ve been watching it in movies all these years, but I was here live seeing it in person.”
“It felt so different, the environment, everywhere was so beautiful,” he says. “I saw it online, but I couldn’t imagine myself being there in person. Seeing all the top people and kings from other countries, it felt great.”
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Anozie, who is from Lagos, Nigeria, took part in the Prince’s Trust International Get Into Renewable Energy program — run in partnership with the Field of Skills and Dreams Academy — and thanks to his internship through the charity, he is now in full-time employment as an electrical engineer.
The program is something Anozie remains grateful to the King and his charity for. “It was so great to see a man who has made me who I am today,” he says.
Meanwhile, Will Straw, who is the CEO of the Prince’s Trust International, was also a guest in the Abbey and took the 10 young people, including Anozie, from the charity to the service “as part of the historic occasion.”
“It was very moving. There was a strong sense of it being a historic moment,” Straw tells PEOPLE. “The music was fantastic. It was quite somber in parts — everyone was conscious of the great responsibility that he has taken seriously all through his life, through his charity work and his role in representing Britain on the world stage and the realms. That was reflected in the service and the mood inside.”
When the King was crowned, “there was a hush and a sense of importance of the moment,” recalls Straw. “The Archbishop of Canterbury’s sermon about service felt very resonant at that moment.”
Straw added that the atmosphere seemed to ease and lighten shortly after that point and as the King and Queen Camilla passed on the way out, “There was an outpouring of goodwill for Their Majesties and I am sure that was reflected as much outside as it was inside.”
“It was a really international audience, with the role of the Commonwealth and the realms. And also the makeup of the congregation and the service reflected the diversity of modern Britain as well.”
It was all so different from the sight of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. “Again, it is the work that he has done at the Prince’s Trust and other charities that show his commitment to young employment and climate change and other causes,” adds Straw.
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As Charles — the prince who set up his trust five decades ago — is now King, Straw says, “His commitment to young people across the Commonwealth and beyond and to the work of the Prince’s Trust is undimmed.”
“His commitment to his causes is demonstrated through the great work of the Prince’s Trust that he founded nearly 50 years ago,” he said, noting that his commitment was evident from the makeup of the 2,200 guests at the service. “You can see his legacy is demonstrated through that work, and it was reflected in the Abbey. There were a mixture of those who worked for those charities and the beneficiaries of those charities, including those young people,” he added.
The Prince’s Trust was founded by the then Prince of Wales in 1976 and has supported more than one million young people and is now in 23 countries around the world.
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