Prince William’s billionaire polo pal dies at 53 after swallowing bee during match in Windsor

WINDSOR, ENGLAND: Bil­lion­aire busi­ness­man and close friend of Prince William, Sun­jay Kapur, 53, died on June 12, 2025, dur­ing a polo match at the pres­ti­gious Guards Polo Club in Windsor.x

Accord­ing to reports from The US Sun, the Indi­an-born indus­tri­al­ist is believed to have suf­fered a fatal heart attack, pos­si­bly trig­gered by an ana­phy­lac­tic reac­tion after report­ed­ly swal­low­ing a bee mid-game.

The sud­den loss has stunned friends and spec­ta­tors alike, espe­cial­ly com­ing just hours after Kapur pub­licly hon­ored the vic­tims of the dev­as­tat­ing Air India tragedy that claimed 241 lives.

Prince William’s pal Sunjay Kapur collapses during Cartier Queen’s Cup match

Accord­ing to the Dai­ly Mail, Sun­jay Kapur died while com­pet­ing in a semi-final match of the pres­ti­gious Carti­er Queen’s Cup, with his team, Aureus, fac­ing off against the Sujan Indi­an Tigers. 

The match, held on Tues­day, June 12, began at 3 pm on the his­toric Smith’s Lawn grounds—part of the elite Guards Polo Club, known for its close ties to the British roy­al fam­i­ly.

Found­ed in Jan­u­ary 1955, the club was led by Prince Philip as pres­i­dent until his death in April 2021. Fol­low­ing Philip’s death, King Charles took on the role of club pres­i­dent last year, con­tin­u­ing the roy­al con­nec­tion to one of the UK’s most exclu­sive polo venues.

Indi­an media reports sug­gest that Sun­jay Kapur may have suf­fered a fatal ana­phy­lac­tic shock after being stung by a bee inside his mouth dur­ing a polo match. 

Sources indi­cate he had asked for the game to be stopped moments before col­laps­ing on the field. While pre­lim­i­nary accounts point to a severe aller­gic reac­tion, the exact cause of death is still under inves­ti­ga­tion.

On the per­son­al front, Kapur was once mar­ried to Bol­ly­wood actress Karis­ma Kapoor, with whom he had two chil­dren, Samaira and Kiaan. After their sep­a­ra­tion, he mar­ried Priya Sachdev, a for­mer mod­el and fash­ion entre­pre­neur, with whom he had a son named Azarias Kapur.

Tributes pour in after Sunjay Kapur dies at 53

Sun­jay Kapur was the chair­man of the glob­al auto com­po­nents giant Sona Com­star. The com­pa­ny issued a heart­felt state­ment mourn­ing his sud­den loss, say­ing, “We are deeply sad­dened by the sud­den demise of our Chair­man, Mr Sun­jay Kapur.” 

They praised his lead­er­ship, call­ing, “He was a vision­ary leader whose pas­sion, insight and ded­i­ca­tion shaped the iden­ti­ty and suc­cess of our com­pa­ny.”

Author and actor Suhel Seth took to his X account to pay trib­ute fol­low­ing the death of Sun­jay Kapur, “Deeply sad­dened at the pass­ing of @sunjaykapur: he passed away ear­li­er today in Eng­land. A ter­ri­ble loss and deep­est con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly and to his col­leagues.”

The Hurling­ham Polo Asso­ci­a­tion (HPA), a lead­ing sports gov­ern­ing body in the UK, extend­ed its con­do­lences fol­low­ing Kapur’s death. “The HPA is enor­mous­ly sad to con­firm that Sun­jay Kapur, patron of the Aureus Polo Team, passed away dur­ing a match at Guards on Thurs­day, 12 June. The inci­dent was not play­ing-relat­ed and no fur­ther details will be released at this time.”

They added, “As the gov­ern­ing body, the HPA are sup­port­ing those involved and our thoughts are with Sunjay’s wife Priya, his fam­i­ly, and the team at this time, and we kind­ly request that their pri­va­cy is respect­ed.”

Ashoka Uni­ver­si­ty, based in New Del­hi, also released a state­ment mourn­ing his death on X (for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter), “Ashoka Uni­ver­si­ty mourns the pass­ing away of Sun­jay Kapur, Chair­man, Sona Com­star and a val­ued mem­ber of the Ashoka fra­ter­ni­ty. A promi­nent fig­ure in Indi­a’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, he will be remem­bered for his lead­er­ship. Our deep­est sym­pa­thies are with his fam­i­ly at this dif­fi­cult time.”

Sunjay Kapur once left his sick son for a polo match with Prince William, claimed ex-wife

Sun­jay Kapur was well known in the UK’s polo cir­cles and shared a long­stand­ing friend­ship with Prince William, fre­quent­ly appear­ing on the roy­al polo cir­cuit. His con­nec­tions extend­ed beyond William, as he was also friend­ly with sev­er­al mem­bers of the aris­to­crat­ic polo com­mu­ni­ty.

Accord­ing to Livemint, Karis­ma alleged that Kapur once left her and their ill four-month-old son behind to par­tic­i­pate in a polo match with Prince William.

She report­ed­ly stat­ed: “(Sun­jay) decid­ed to car­ry on, leav­ing me behind to take care of our sick four-month-old son, just to play a Polo match with Prince William. I also realised that he had mar­ried me only because I was a famous and suc­cess­ful film star, which would facil­i­tate him to be report­ed in the press.”