Prince Harry has made plain his hostility to the tabloid news industry, having launched a number of lawsuits against British newspapers. Yet the publication of the Duke of Sussex’s tell-all book has provided his adversaries with stories they could only dream of.
Here are just 11 of the claims and revelations that have been leaked days before the official publication of the memoir, Spare.
1. Harry claims William physically attacked him
Harry claimed that his brother, Prince William, hit him and pushed him to the floor in an attack after the Prince of Wales described Meghan Markle as “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”, The Guardian reported.
Harry writes: “(William) called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor.
“I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”
2. Harry told his therapist about the fight before he told Meghan
The duke said William told him he did not need to tell “Meg” about the confrontation, but Harry writes that he told his therapist first and Meghan later noticed the scrapes and bruises on his back.
“She was terribly sad,” he said of his wife’s reaction.
3. The brothers call each other ‘Willy’ and Harold’
The fight also revealed the pair’s nicknames for one another.
Harry writes that he gave his brother a glass of water and said: “Willy, I can’t speak to you when you’re like this.”, while William told him “I didn’t attack you, Harold.”
4. King Charles asked Harry and William not to ‘make my final years a misery’
Charles pleaded with the brothers to stop fighting at Windsor after the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral
In a tense meeting after Philip’s funeral, a grieving Charles told his sons: “Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery.”
5. Harry claims William and Kate encouraged him to wear the Nazi uniform
Harry sparked outrage in 2005 when he wore the uniform complete with swastika armband to a fancy dress party.
But according to US website Page Six, he claims he phoned the couple to ask them whether he should chose a pilot’s uniform or a Nazi one for the fancy dress party and William and Kate said the latter, and both howled with laughter when he went home and tried it on for them.
6. Charles’s delight at Diana giving birth to a ‘spare’
Harry tells how, after he was born, his father supposedly told the Princess of Wales that his son’s arrival was wonderful and that now she had given him an heir and a spare, his work was done.
Both Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace have declined to comment.
7. Harry and William ‘begged’ Charles not to marry Camilla
Harry claims that he and William told Charles they would welcome the now-Queen Consort into the family on the condition he did not marry her and “begged” him not to do so.
The Duke alleges that his father did not respond to their pleas.
8. Harry killed 25 people while serving in Afghanistan
The Telegraph, which obtained a Spanish language copy of the memoir from a bookshop in Spain, reported Harry said flying six missions during his second tour of duty on the front line resulted in “the taking of human lives” of which he was neither proud nor ashamed.
“So, my number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me,” he wrote.
9. Harry reveals his use of cocaine
The Duke said he had “taken cocaine” during a shooting weekend by the summer of 2002 when he was 17 and did “a few more lines” on other occasions, according to the Times.
He wrote that it was not “fun and it did not make me feel as happy as it seemed to make others but it did make me feel different and that was my main goal. To feel. To be different”.
10. Harry lost his virginity to an older woman behind a pub
He claims it took place in a field behind a “very busy pub” and that the woman treated him like a “young stallion”, the Daily Mail said.
The Duke wrote:“I mounted her quickly, after which she spanked my ass and sent me away.
11. Harry claims a woman passed on message from his mother
The Duke said the woman, who “claimed to have ‘powers’”, told him Diana is “with” him and that she knows he is “looking for clarity” and “feels” his confusion.
He reveals the woman, who is not referred to as a psychic or medium, caused his neck to grow warm and his eyes to water, The Guardian reported.
12. Harry asked a driver to replicate the journey Diana took in Paris before her death
While in Paris for the 2007 Rugby World Cup semi-final, Harry, who was 23, was driven through the Pont de l’Alma tunnel at the same speed as the car that was carrying Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed when it crashed in August 1997.
Harry said there was “no reason anyone should ever die inside” the tunnel, adding that the drive was “a very bad idea”, People Magazine said.
13. Harry wanted Diana inquiry reopened
Harry says both he and his brother “were talked out” of calling for a reinvestigation into his mother’s death “by the powers that be”.
He adds that he and William felt the final written report on the princess’s death was a “joke” and an “insult” and “riddled with basic factual errors and gaping logical holes”.
“It raised more questions than it answered,” Harry wrote.