Prince Harry’s book reveals grief, war and drug use, as well as family rifts
LONDON (AP) — Bereaved boy, troubled teen, wartime soldier, unhappy royal — many facets of Prince Harry are revealed in his explosive memoir, often in eyebrow-raising detail.
From accounts of cocaine use and losing his virginity to raw family rifts, “Spare” exposes deeply personal details about Harry and the wider royal family.
Before Tuesday’s publication worldwide, the Associated Press bought a Spanish-language copy of the book. Its revelations have electrified the British media — but have been met with silence from Buckingham Palace.
BROTHER and SON
The book opens with a quote from American writer William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Harry’s story is dominated by his rivalry with elder brother Prince William and the death of the boys’ mother, Princess Diana, in 1997. Harry, who was 12 at the time, has never forgiven the media for Diana’s death in a car crash while being pursued by photographers.
The loss of his mother haunts the book, which Harry dedicates to wife Meghan, children Archie and Lili “and, of course, my mother.”
The opening chapter recounts how his father Prince Charles — now King Charles III — broke the news of his mother’s accident, but didn’t give his son a hug.
Harry reveals that years later he asked his driver to take him through the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris, site of the fatal crash, hoping in vain that it would help end a “decade of unrelenting pain. He also says he once consulted a woman who claimed to have “powers” and to be able to pass on messages from Diana.
Harry adds that he and William both “begged” their father not to marry his long-term paramour Camilla Parker-Bowles, worried she would become a “wicked stepmother.”
Harry also is tormented by his status as royal “spare” behind William, who is heir to the British throne. Harry tells of a long-standing sibling rivalry, which grew worse after Harry started a relationship with Meghan Markle, an American actress. He married Meghan in 2018.
He says that during an argument in 2019, William called Meghan “difficult” and “rude,” then grabbed him by the collar and knocked him down. Harry sustained cuts and bruises when he fell on a dog-bowl.
Harry says Charles implored the brothers to make up, saying after the funeral of Prince Philip in 2021: “Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery.”
Neither Buckingham Palace, which represents King Charles III, nor William’s Kensington Palace office has commented on any of the allegations.
WILD TEENAGE YEARS
The memoir suggests the media’s party-boy image of Harry during his teen and young adult years was well-deserved.
Harry describes how he lost his virginity at 17 — in a field behind a pub to an older woman who loved horses and treated the teenage prince like a “young stallion.” It was, he says, a “humiliating episode.”
He also says he took cocaine several times starting at the same age, in order “to feel. To be different.” He also acknowledges using cannabis and magic mushrooms — which made him hallucinate that a toilet was talking to hm.
RELEVATIONS ARMY
Harry served two tours in Afghanistan as a soldier in the British Army over ten years. He claims that he killed 25 Taliban militants during his second tour in Afghanistan, which he was a co-pilot and gunner for the Apache helicopter. Harry says he felt neither satisfaction nor shame about his actions, and in the heat of battle regarded enemy combatants as pieces being removed from a chessboard, “Baddies eliminated before they could kill Goodies.”
The comments were criticized by veterans who said that they could pose a security risk to Harry. Retired Col. Richard Kemp said it was “an error of judgment,” and regarding enemy fighters as chess pieces is “not the way the British Army trains people.”
“I think that sort of comment that doesn’t reflect reality is misleading and potentially valuable to those people who wish the British forces and British government harm,” he told the BBC.
In 2021, the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan. Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi called the Western invasion of Afghanistan “odious” and said Harry’s comments “are a microcosm of the trauma experienced by Afghans at the hands of occupation forces who murdered innocents without any accountability.”
PERSONAL JOURNEY
Harry credits Meghan for changing his perspective on the world, and his view of himself. He says he was “wrapped in privilege” and had no understanding of unconscious bias before he met her.
The young prince notoriously wore a Nazi uniform to a costume party in 2005, and claims in the book that William and his now-wife Kate encouraged the choice of outfit and “howled” with laughter when they saw it. Although he used a racist term in 2006 about a Pakistani-American soldier, he says that he didn’t know what the term meant.
Meghan and Harry cited the U.K. media’s treatment of the biracial American actress as one of the main reasons for their decision to quit royal duties and move to the U.S. in 2020.
There is no indication in the book that royal family relations would be restored soon. Harry told ITV in an interview to promote the book that he wants reconciliation, but that there must be “accountability” first.
Harry describes in the final pages how William and Harry walked side by side at the Queen Elizabeth II funeral procession in September. But they spoke almost nothing to each other.
“The next day, Meg and I returned to the United States,” he says.