By Bronte Gossling|
Prince Harry is not holding back.
Just when we thought the Duke of Sussex, 38, had revealed every explosive detail from his royal upbringing and resignation, more information comes out as select members of the British press make their way through his 416-page memoir Spare, which was leaked and then quickly pulled from stores in Spain five days before its official release on January 11 (Australia time).
So far, Harry says in the tome – which was ghostwritten by American novelist and journalist J. R. Moehringer – that he felt brother Prince William was "gone – forever" after his 2011 wedding to Kate Middleton, claimed he was left visibly hurt after an alleged physical attack by William over Harry's wife Meghan Markle, and alleged both William and Kate were behind his infamous Nazi costume, which he wore to a party in 2005 and regards as "one of the biggest mistakes" of his life. He also revealed how many people he killed when he fought in Afghanistan, which one royal expert claims puts the British royal family's safety at "risk."
And we haven't even touched on Harry's pre-launch interviews for Spare, of which there will be four broadcast on television to audiences in the United States and United Kingdom over the coming days.
Here's every major bombshell Harry has reportedly dropped in Spare – so far. Buckingham Palace has not commented on allegations made in the memoir yet.
Watch the video above.
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Harry couldn't resist airing some of his family's dirty laundry in his memoir.
New information was revealed on the date of Spare's official publication, including the Duke of Sussex's account of Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton's fight before the royal wedding.
According to text messages Harry shared in his book, a disagreement between the women brewed over Princess Charlotte's ill-fitting dress.
In the book, Harry says Meghan received a blunt message from Kate asking that the flower girl dresses be entirely re-made.
In the exchange, Meghan curtly responds by telling the Princess of Wales her tailor is on stand-by and can alter the dress right away.
According to the book, Meghan was in the middle of fighting with her father, Thomas Markle, when the argument with Kate ensued.
"Charlotte's dress is too big, too long, too baggy. She cried when she tried it on at home," Kate's first message read.
"Right, and I told you the tailor has been standing by since 8am,'' Meghan replied. "Here, at KP. Can you take Charlotte to have it altered, as the other mums are doing."
Kate responded: "No, all the dresses need to be remade."
A frustrated Meghan hit back: "I'm not sure what else to say. If the dress doesn't fit then please take Charlotte to see Ajay. He's been waiting all day."
Kate simply responded with: "fine", according to the messages in Harry's book.
"Meg didn't reply to Kate straight away. Yes, she had endless wedding-related texts, but mostly she was dealing with the chaos surrounding her father. So the next morning she texted Kate that our tailor was standing by," he wrote.
"Meg asked if Kate was aware of what was going on right now. With her father. Kate said she was well aware, but the dresses. And the wedding is in four days!"
Harry said the conflict had left Meghan on the floor "sobbing" just days before their royal wedding.
He was "horrified" at Meghan's response but says the argument was cleared up when Kate arrived the next day with flowers and an apology.
Prince William certainly isn't receiving the peachiest portrayal so far in Spare.
Per The Sun report, Harry writes that he and William had another bust-up in April 2021 after Prince Philip's funeral as they held peace talks alongside King Charles.
Harry says a "steaming" and "shouting" William "grabbed his shirt" while they spoke with Charles in the gardens of Frogmore Cottage in April 2021.
In the book, the Duke of Sussex reportedly accused his brother and father of "violating" their agreement to depart the royal family.
While William "raged" at Harry, as the book reportedly states, Charles did not respond with anger at all.
During their stroll through the palace gardens, Harry writes in Spare that William said:
"I just want you to be happy."
"My voice broke as I told him softly, 'I really don't think you do'."
Tempers flared when Harry claims his brother used the "secret code" the pair rarely used.
"I swear on Mummy's life," William replied, according to Spare.
"I waved a hand, disgusted, but he lunged, grabbed my shirt. 'Listen to me, Harold'," Harry continued.
"I pulled away, refused to meet his gaze. He forced me to look into his eyes. Listen to me, Harold, listen! I love you, Harold! I want you to be happy."
Ah, the first meeting that was either a blind date set up by a friend or organised by Harry and Meghan themselves through Instagram that started it all.
In the Sussexes' Netflix documentary, they opened up about how they met and what happened on their first date. In Spare, Harry reportedly goes into extreme detail about what happened after – and it's saucy, but not for the reasons you may think.
Per The Sun, in his memoir, Harry writes that he "barged into [his friend's] house off the King's Road" following saying goodbye to Meghan after their date and they started drinking together.
"Out came the tequila. Out came the weed. We drank and smoked and watched … Inside Out," Harry reportedly writes.
Harry also reportedly said he felt "peacefully numb" and also writes it was "good weed, dude." Then, he got a FaceTime call from Meghan, and reportedly he said to his friend: "Oh s–t, it's her."
"Are you watching cartoons?" Meghan asked Harry, to which he replied, "No. I mean, yeah. It's … Inside Out."
"I moved to a quiet corner of the flat," Harry adds. "She was back at her hotel. She'd washed her face. I said, 'God, I love your freckles. That's insane, they're beautiful'."
They then decided to go on a second date at Soho House, eventually getting engaged in 2017 and married in 2018.
Harry has been open about his drug use throughout the memoir, despite previously calling reports of his drug use false.
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Meghan may have found her father-in-law "charming" and was touched when he walked her down the aisle in lieu of her own father's scandal, but according to Harry, Charles was envious of the Duchess of Sussex's popularity.
This fact emerged during a discussion about money, with Harry claiming in Spare that Charles told him the royal family didn't have "enough money" to financially support Meghan, as Charles was "already having to pay" a hefty sum to support Harry, William and Kate.
"Pa didn't financially support Willy and me, and our families, out of any largesse," Harry writes, according to Page Six. "That was his job. That was the whole deal."
Harry says he and William "agreed to serve the monarch" and remain "inside the gilded cage at all time" in exchange for being taken care of, and he soon realised Charles was not worried about money, rather, he alleges Charles took issue with Meghan's growing popularity.
"Pa might have dreaded the rising cost of maintaining us, but what he really couldn't stomach was someone new dominating the monarchy, grabbing the limelight, someone shiny and new coming in and overshadowing him," Harry writes, noting that Charles had "lived through that before" with Diana.
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Per Us Weekly, Harry didn't thank any members of his family of origin in Spare's acknowledgements section, but Hollywood pals James Corden and Tyler Perry, who is Lilibet's godfather, got a mention.
"For Meg and Archie and Lili," he reportedly wrote in the acknowledgements section. And, of course, my mother."
Speaking of Harry's family of origin, when he and Meghan announced they were growing their own brood, William's reaction was not at all negative.
Harry and Meghan reportedly shared their baby joy at Princess Eugenie's wedding in October 2018, with Harry announcing it to his brother at the reception at Windsor Castle.
Reportedly, William was delighted, telling Harry, "We must tell Kate."
Charles was also reportedly excited to become a grandfather again.
Elsewhere in the book, Harry reveals that he had Nando's delivered to the hospital while Meghan was in labour with Archie, which had to be delivered by his bodyguards.
Harry reportedly writes that he wanted to be the first face baby Lilibet saw when she entered the world in 2021, and apparently, this meant the Duke of Sussex bent down and delivered his daughter with the guidance of a doctor.
He also said once they returned home from the hospital, Meghan wrote down her deep love for Harry in a "poem-esque form" for him to read.
Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor was born in June 2021 in California. She was named after the Queen's nickname, and Harry's mother.
The Queen met her little namesake during her Platinum Jubilee celebrations one year after Lilibet was born, in June 2022, in the United Kingdom.
At the meeting, Harry reportedly writes that her great-grandson, Archie, attempted to bow for her, which "delighted" the Queen.
Harry says Archie had been practicing his bow for his great-grandmother in anticipation of the moment.
It comes amid criticism of Meghan for how she described having to curtsy for the Queen at their first meeting years earlier.
Meghan, however, reportedly got Charles' stamp of approval after styling herself how Charles prefers on the advice of Harry.
"Meg looked beautiful," Harry wrote of his wife's first meeting with Charles and Camilla, saying she wore a "full skirt, patterned with flowers" per Page Six.
He said he made sure she styled her hair down, just the way "Pa likes it", and encouraged her to wear only a "little" bit of makeup on her face because the future monarch "didn't approve of women who wore a lot."
According to Harry, the Sussexes even "rehearsed" the meeting "several times" and Harry told Meghan to "curtsy" and say 'Your Royal Highness' or address Charles as 'Sir', and only give him a kiss on the cheek if he "leans in."
Harry said Meghan didn't have to curtsy for Camilla, which apparently Meghan questioned.
The foursome spent their meeting talking about their "fur babies."
While all the introductions got off to a good start, jealousy did grow, with Harry speaking of Charles, William and Kate's bouts of envy of Meghan throughout Spare.
The Sussexes, however, also admit some jealousy on their part, with Harry reportedly writing that he and Meghan were "jealous" of the lavish furniture in William and Kate's home at Kensington Palace, while they had to use IKEA to decorate their home.
There's mentions of the Waleses' walnut bookshelves and priceless art, while Meghan had to buy an IKEA lamp and discount sofa using Meghan's credit card.
Meghan has been open about her battle with mental health, and according to Harry, she "didn't trust herself to be home alone" after she revealed to Harry she was experiencing suicidal ideation.
"I begged her not to talk like that. I promised her we'd get through it, we'd find a way. In the meantime, we'd find her the help she needed," Harry writes in Spare, per Us Weekly.
"I asked her to be strong, hang on."
Meghan, as has been reported previously, revealed her feelings to Harry ahead of an appearance at the Royal Albert Hall while she was pregnant with Archie. Harry suggested that she skip the event while he made an appearance, already "thinking like a f–king royal" and worried their tardiness would cause him and Meghan more grief.
Meghan, however, rejected this offer and said she "didn't trust herself to be home alone for even an hour with such dark feelings."
The couple ultimately attended the event.
If you or someone you know needs immediate or mental health-related support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or via lifeline.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.
On the 20th anniversary of Diana's death in 2017, Harry and his then-girlfriend rowed out to the island where his mother is buried on the Althorp Estate.
Harry took a private moment to reflect by himself at Diana's resting place, and he sensed Meghan wanted a moment between herself and Diana too.
"When I returned, she was on her knees with her eyes closed and her palms flat against the stone," Harry reportedly writes in Spare, saying that she told him she had asked Diana for "clarity and guidance."
Well, we already know Meghan's thoughts on the "formality" behind closed doors with the British royal family, as seen in the Harry & Meghan docuseries, where she described being a "hugger" as "jarring" for her British brother- and sister-in-law at their first meeting.
But according to Harry, William straight up "completely freaked" out about Meghan's warm embrace when they first met.
Harry writes in Spare that in 2016, when Meghan first met the Prince and Princess of Wales, William "recoiled" when Meghan went to hug him.
"Willy didn't hug many strangers. Whereas Meg hugged most strangers," Harry writes in the memoir, per Page Six.
Harry also says he didn't believe Meghan had to curtsy to his brother despite "protocol" dictating otherwise when someone meets a royal family member for the first time.
"Will had hoped that she would greet him with standard reverence per the protocol because she didn't know it and I hadn't told her," Harry says, noting how in other situations, he had told her when she should curtsy but didn't deem it necessary for her meeting with "Willy."
"When meeting my grandmother, I'd made it clear – this is the Queen, but when meeting my brother, it was just Willy, who loved Suits," Harry writes.
Reportedly, Kate was waiting outside with their kids as Meghan and William met for the first time.
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One major takeaway from Harry and Meghan's controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey was that, contrary to longstanding rumours that Meghan made Kate cry in the lead up to the Sussexes' 2018 royal wedding, the Duchess of Sussex insisted "the reverse happened."
We previously knew that, thanks to the Sussexes' Oprah tell-all, the alleged incident was over flower girl dresses, and Harry has reportedly provided new details into what allegedly occurred between the sisters-in-law ahead of the May 2018 nuptials.
Harry reportedly writes in Spare that Meghan offended Kate, who delivered Prince Louis the month before the Sussexes' wedding, by telling her she must have "baby brain because of her hormones."
Per royal sources and extracts from Spare, translated ones obtained by The Sun initially with other outlets following, Harry writes about a discussion of the timing of the wedding rehearsal and flower girl dresses, which upset Kate as Meghan made the "baby brain" remark.
Reportedly, Kate told Meghan she wasn't close enough to her to be able to discuss her hormones and that it wasn't the way people in the royal family spoke to each other.
Harry reportedly makes it clear in the book that the fallout between the sisters-in-law was something Meghan felt wasn't her fault, and Harry reiterates Meghan's claim that Kate 'made' Meghan cry.
It was, according to Harry, all over Princess Charlotte's flower girl dress. Reportedly, Kate texted Meghan the week of their wedding that there was a "problem" with Charlotte's custom-made Givenchy flower girl frock, and Meghan told Kate to bring Charlotte to the palace, so a tailor could alter her dress alongside the other five little bridesmaids' dresses.
Harry says this was "not sufficient" for Kate, who arranged for the two of them to talk. According to Harry, Kate allegedly told Meghan that Charlotte's dress was "too big, long and baggy" and that Charlotte "burst into tears when she tried it on."
Meghan then reiterated that Kate should bring Charlotte to the tailor who was on standby, but according to Harry, Kate replied that Charlotte's dress, four days before the wedding, needed to be completely remade, and told Meghan that her own wedding dress designer, Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen, agreed with her.
Kate eventually agreed to take Charlotte to the waiting tailor, but Harry says in Spare he found Meghan later in tears "on the floor" following the alleged altercation. Kate, Harry says, did apologise to Meghan with flowers and a card she brought over the following day, which Meghan previously said is what happened to Oprah in 2021.
Another time, Harry recalls Kate "awkwardly" sharing her lip gloss with Meghan in 2018 after Meghan asked her to borrow some as she forgot hers, "an American thing", Harry says, which caused Kate to "grimace" when Meghan squeezed some onto her finger to put on her lips.
As for the wedding, Harry says he and Meghan were "touched" by the thought of Meghan wearing one of Diana's tiaras on the big day, but the Queen reportedly begged them to select something from her own private jewellery collection.
So, they chose one of the five they were presented with, but then were reportedly presented with "obstacles" to deny them their choice. Harry also says in Spare there were "heated" debates as to if Meghan should wear a veil as a divorced woman.
Ultimately, she did.
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The Duke of Sussex has not shied away from his racist past, not only addressing his disgusting Nazi costume scandal in 2005, but also revealing he used a racial slur when describing a fellow soldier from Pakistan when he was in the armed forces – with a large part of his unlearning of racial bias from "unconscious bias" he says was instilled in him from others.
Per the Mirror, in Spare, Harry, who received a racial justice award in December alongside Meghan, who is biracial, writes that he described the soldier as "P—" and said he had no idea it was an insult as he "heard many people use that word" when he was a child and he "had not seen anyone wince or get upset" when it had been used.
"I didn't know anything about unconscious biases either. I was twenty-one years old, I had grown isolated from the real world and wrapped in privilege, and I believed that word was the same as 'Yankee', harmless," Harry writes.
The offending incident occurred in 2006, and footage of Harry using the word emerged three years later after being sold by a fellow cadet at Sandhurst to a newspaper.
Harry claims he was denied the right to issue a personal apology, as Charles' office released a public statement on the issue.
Weeks after Diana's death, Harry turned 13 and was sent back to his boarding school in Ludgrove.
Per the Mirror, in Spare, after Harry had indulged in some sorbet and a special birthday cake to mark the occasion, Diana's sister Sarah McCorquodale presented him with an Xbox gaming console, which she said Diana had bought for him ahead of his birthday and had been planning on gifting it to him when he turned 13.
"It was an Xbox. I was happy; I loved video games," Harry writes, recalling how he tore off the wrapping paper eagerly but adds he's not sure if it's 100 per cent true as he's unable to remember certain memories.
"That's the story, at least. It has appeared in many chronicles of my life, as if it were gospel, but I have no idea if it's true. My father had told me that my mother had hurt her head, but maybe I was the one with a brain injury. As a defence mechanism, I'm sure, my memory no longer stored the experiences as it used to," he writes.
Another gift from Diana was a posthumous message delivered to him by a woman who "claimed to have 'powers'", who Harry sought out in an effort to heal and get help.
"You're living the life she couldn't," Harry writes in Spare that the woman told him, according to The Guardian. "You're living the life she wanted for you."
Harry does not say where the meeting happened or when, and does not use words like "psychic" or "medium" to describe the woman.
He says he "recognised the high-percentage chance of humbuggery" but went to see her because trusted friends of his recommended her.
"The minute we sat down together, I felt an energy around her," Harry writes, saying the woman told him she felt an energy around him as well and that his mother was "with" him.
"I know, I've felt that of late," Harry says he replied, and says the woman told him his mother was with him right then and there, which he says made his eyes water and neck grow warm.
Harry says the woman told him Diana knew he was "looking for clarity" and "feels [his] confusion", knew he had "so many questions" and said the answers would come in time.
He writes he wanted to believe the woman but needed "proof. A sign. Anything."
The woman then told him Diana said something about a Christmas tree ornament of the Queen that Archie had broken accidentally and had later tried to fix.
"Your mother says she had a bit of a giggle about that," Harry writes the woman said.
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It's an effort lauded globally, but apparently William was not very happy when he heard about Harry's idea for the Invictus Games.
Created by Harry in 2014, it's an annual sporting event held to benefit injured, wounded and sick service members and veterans worldwide.
Harry claims William was "supremely irritated" at the idea in what he implies was out of jealousy, and according to Page Six, the Duke of Sussex writes that William complained it would drain funds from their foundation.
Harry called William's notion "absurd" and rebutted that the money would come from the Endeavour Fund, a branch he says he "created specifically for the rehabilitation of veterans" and donors.
He blamed William's reluctance at the time on their brotherly "rivalry" and writes: "I covered my eyes with my hands. Had we not gotten over that? All of that stuff about the Heir versus the replacement? Were we not a bit too old for that tiring, child-like dynamic?"
"He was married and had a baby on the way," he adds. "Meanwhile, I would order food alone and do my dishes in front of the sink. My father's sink! I still lived with my dad, [King Charles III]. The game is over, man. You win."
Nothing is sacred anymore, and we should have known that when Harry detailed losing his virginity to an older woman when he was 17 – but the extremely personal information did not stop there.
The Duke of Sussex was all too happy to share the fact that he's circumcised to… checks notes… refute rumours in the press that Diana had "forbidden" the procedure on her sons.
"There were countless stories in books, and papers [even The New York Times] about Willy and me not being circumcised," Harry writes in Spare of the princes' genitals being "a matter of public record, and indeed some public curiosity."
"Mummy had forbidden it, they all said, and while it's absolutely true that the chance of getting penile frostbite is much greater if you're not circumcised, all the stories were false. I was snipped as a baby," he continues, per Page Six, before detailing getting frostbite on his penis ahead of his brother's wedding to Kate in 2011.
"Upon arriving home I'd been horrified to discover that my nether regions were frost nipped as well," he writes of the aftermath of an excursion to the cold, noting his ears and cheeks had been frostbitten.
"And while the ears and cheeks were already healing, the todger wasn't. It was becoming more of an issue by the day."
After consulting a doctor, he was advised that "time heals" all (some) wounds.
He eventually went on to welcome Archie Mountbatten-Windsor and Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor with Meghan.
The spare was permitted to serve in Afghanistan on active duty, with Harry twice fighting against the Taliban, first as a forward air controller calling in air strikes between 2007 and 2008, and then flying an attack helicopter himself between 2012 and 2013.
It was while working as an Apache helicopter pilot during his second tour that he flew on six missions resulting in Taliban deaths, with 25 people reportedly being killed by Harry during his time fighting.
Harry reveals in Spare that "taking human lives" is something he is not proud nor ashamed of as it was simply his job to do it as a soldier, writing, "we take a life to save a life."
Of his alleged 25 kills, Harry says he did not think of them as "people" but instead as "chess pieces" that had to be taken off the board, writing he also saw the slain insurgents as "baddies eliminated before they could kill goodies."
"My number is 25. It's not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me," he reportedly writes in memoir, and justifies his actions with memories of meeting families of 9/11 victims.
Harry says those responsible for the attack in New York City in 2001 and their sympathisers were "enemies of humanity" and fighting against them was an act of vengeance for a crime against humanity.
Usually, soldiers do not know how many enemies they have killed, but Harry claims he watched footage captured from cameras mounted on the nose of his Apache helicopter to confirm when he got back to base.
Harry first was deployed to Afghanistan in 2007 for two months under a strict news blackout for security reasons, which British media agreed to, but was forced to return home when an overseas publication broke the embargo.
In 2008, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant with the Household Calvary and then retrained as a helicopter in the Army Air Corps, returning to Afghanistan in 2012 for 20 weeks. He left the military in March 2015, after rising to the rank of captain.
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As Harry grew up, he was surrounded by rumours that his real father was the red-headed Major James Hewitt, who has previously disclosed he had an affair with Princess Diana while she was still married to Charles.
According to Charles' second son, the King would make "sadistic" jibes at Harry about who his "real" father is, with Harry, according to Page Six, saying his father enjoyed making the jokes in Spare.
"Pa liked telling stories, and this was one of the best in his repertoire. He'd always end with a burst of philosophising … Who knows if I'm really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I'm even your real father?" Harry reportedly writes.
"He'd laugh and laugh, though it was a remarkably unfunny joke, given the rumour circulating just then that my actual father was one of Mummy's former lovers: Major James Hewitt. One cause of this rumour was Major Hewitt's flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism."
Harry then speculates that tabloid readers loved the rumour despite the fact that Diana and Hewitt did not meet until after he was born.
"Maybe it made them feel better about their lives that a young prince's life was laugh-able. Never mind that my mother didn't meet Major Hewitt until long after I was born," Harry reportedly writes.
According to Us Weekly, Harry reveals in Spare that he and Meghan had a blowout fight that saw him speak "cruelly" to his wife.
The duke reportedly writes in his memoir that he "became touchy" after a conversation with the duchess "took an unexpected turn" and he "snapped" at her. He recalls being "disproportionately, sloppily angry" at Meghan and addressing her so "harshly" that "everything in the room [came] to a stop."
They then spent a full 15 minutes apart and came together to speak in their bedroom, where Harry writes Meghan calmly told him she "would never stand for being spoken to like that" nor would she "tolerate" it in the future, to which he nodded.
"She wasn't going to raise children in an atmosphere of anger or disrespect. She laid it all out, super-clear," he reportedly writes.
Harry reportedly writes that after Meghan asked him where his outburst "came from", he agreed it was because he overheard the adults in his life speak that way when he was growing up.
"It came from somewhere deep inside, somewhere that needed to be excavated, and it was obvious that I could use some help with the job," Harry recalls in the memoir. "'I've tried therapy,' I told her. 'Willy told me to go. Never found the right person.' [It] didn't work."
Markle, according to Harry, replied, "No… Try again."
So he did. The subject of the fight is not currently known.
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Harry's challenges with "mental fitness" are something he's been open about, though Spare is the first time we reportedly learn Charles blamed himself for his son's mental health challenges following his deployment to Afghanistan.
Per Page Six, Harry recalls a conversation with his father in the early 2010s, where the King lamented at not getting Harry help for his mental health after Harry discussed with Charles "what he had been dealing with", which reportedly he described as panic and anxiety attacks.
Charles, after Harry divulged the information, reportedly "lowered his head and said, 'I suppose it's my fault. I should have gotten you the help you needed years ago.'"
Harry told Charles it "wasn't his fault" but he "appreciated the apology" and that following the discussion, Charles sent Harry to a doctor, which although he says was a "very kind gesture on [Charles'] part", it ultimately didn't help much.
"He wanted to prescribe me pills. I did not want to take pills," Harry says in the memoir, saying he tried copious amounts of remedies to ease his symptoms, which he describes as "alternating between periods of extremely debilitating lethargy and terrifying panic attacks."
"My official life consisted of going out in public, engaging in discussions, debates and giving interviews, and suddenly I found myself almost incapable of doing these basic functions," he writes of that time, saying he would sweat moments before any public appearance and struggled to figure out what was wrong with him.
Ultimately, he was diagnosed with PTSD, which he says his mother's death also contributed to.
If you or someone you know needs immediate or mental health-related support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or via lifeline.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.
Nothing is safe from Harry's wrath, especially not William's rapidly receding hairline.
In Spare, per Page Six, Harry takes aim at William's "alarming" hair loss, noting that he was bewildered when he saw William again after a year at Prince Philip's funeral in April 2021, and he realised that William's resemblance to Diana had faded over time.
"I looked at Willy, really looked at him, perhaps for the first time since we were little," Harry writes, highlighting William's "familiar scowl" was present and "had always been the norm" during their interactions.
He also, according to the outlet, calls William's thinning hair "alarming" and "more advanced" than his, despite the fact that William is only two years older than his younger brother.
Elsewhere in the memoir, the outlet reports that Harry was stuck in a hairy situation in the lead up to his 2018 wedding, with William, Harry claims, "livid" during a discussion regarding whether Harry could keep his beard for his own nuptials.
Harry says he got the "green light" from the Queen to keep his beard for the wedding, but William reportedly "bristled" at the idea and said Harry had put their grandmother in an "uncomfortable position" over the facial hair.
"She had no choice buy to say yes," Harry says William said at the time, to which he claims he responded that the Queen "can speak for herself."
"At one point he actually ordered me, as the 'heir' speaking to the 'spare,' to shave," Harry wrote, with William, according to Harry, eventually confessing that he was "bitter" was not "allowed" to keep his own "full beard" after his time in the armed forces.
"He hated the idea of me enjoying a perk he'd been denied," Harry writes, noting he put his foot down and William could "get on board" with it or not.
Harry walked into Westminster Abbey with a full beard.
It may have been the year the Queen Mother died, but 2002 was also the year a man was born – namely, Harry, when he reportedly lost his virginity to an older woman in a field behind a pub.
According to leaked and translated extracts from Spare, first obtained by The Sun from Spain, Harry had sex for the first time with an unnamed older woman when he was 17, which he was between September 2001 and September 2002, in a field behind a "very busy pub."
Harry reportedly writes that the woman treated the young prince like a "young stallion", which he reveals in a passage where he speaks about how one of the British royal family's bodyguards, who he says was called Marko, visited him when he was studying at Eton in Windsor and told him he had been sent to "find out the truth."
"I suspected he was referring to my recent loss of virginity, a humiliating episode with an older woman who liked macho horses and who treated me like a young stallion," Harry writes.
"I mounted her quickly, after which she spanked my ass and sent me away," he continues. "One of my many mistakes was letting it happen in a field, just behind a very busy pub. No doubt someone had seen us."
Marko, however, was actually checking up on Harry because Charles' press office had caught wind of the fact that a newspaper had evidence of Harry taking drugs, which he said was "all lies."
Harry, however, did reveal in Spare that he had "taken cocaine" during a shooting weekend in 2002's British summer, when he was 17, and did "a few more lines" on other occasions, per the Times.
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He writes 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".
He continues, "I was a 17-year-old willing to try almost anything that would upset the established order. At least that was what I was trying to convince myself of."
In January 2016, when Harry was 31, the duke writes he went to California with friends, drank tequila, got drunk, and took magic mushrooms. He then writes that he started hallucinating, believing a rubbish bin in a bathroom was staring at him and growing a head, at which stage the toilet had also become a head, and began talking to him.
Harry then left the room giggling, he says, and his friend later believed his puffer jacket had turned into a dragon.
The duke has previously spoken about his drug use, telling Oprah Winfrey in 2021: "I was willing to drink. I was willing to take drugs. I was willing to try and do the things that made me feel less like I was feeling."
Charles sent Harry to Featherstone Lodge, a drug rehabilitation clinic in south London, in 2002 after he admitted to smoking cannabis and drinking alcohol.
As for the unnamed woman's identity, Liz Hurley denied longstanding rumours it was her in an interview in December.
If you or someone you know would like to talk to someone confidentially about addiction, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit Reach Out. In an emergency, call 000.
It's not the Diana death conspiracy many would choose out of all the options, but it's the one Harry apparently landed on in his grief.
According to Page Six, the duke, who was 12 when his mother died in a car crash in 1997, admits in Spare that he spent decades trying to find out what really happened on that fateful night in Paris, and was ultimately talked out of calling for an inquiry into her death to be reopened.
"With nothing to do but roam the castle and talk to myself, a suspicion took hold, which then became a firm belief. This was all a trick," Harry says of the belief, which first came when he found out Diana died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, as that's where he and William were staying – with their grandparents Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip – at the time.
"And for once the trick wasn't being played by the people around me, or the press, but by Mummy. Her life's been miserable, she's been hounded, harassed, lied about, lied to. So she's staged an accident as a diversion and run away," he continues.
Diana, who was 36 when she died, was in the car with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, 42, and chauffeur Henri Paul. Diana's bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the sole survivor of the crash.
In Spare, Harry reportedly refers to Fayed not by name, only as "Mummy's new friend" or "boyfriend" and says he was "cheeky … but nice enough" when he met him for the first time in St. Tropez, weeks before her death.
After Diana's death, Harry recalls in Spare that "matrons" at his school asked him to write a "final" letter to her: "I have a vague memory of wanting to protest that she was still alive, and yet not doing so, for fear they'd think I was mad."
Harry says years later he asked his press secretary to review secret police files on the investigation into the crash, and looked at the photos where he realised the lights around her were from camera flashes from paparazzi, which he says made his stomach clench. Harry is extremely clear about his fury at the paparazzi in Spare, the outlet reports.
"I hadn't been aware, before this moment, that the last thing Mummy saw on this earth was a flashbulb," he says.
Harry also opens up about the last time he spoke with Diana, saying he "rushed" her off the phone because he was busy playing with his cousins, having no idea it would be the last time they spoke.
"I wished I'd searched for the words to describe how much I loved her. I didn't know that search would take decades," he writes.
READ MORE: Harry details alleged physical attack from William over Meghan
According to The Sun's translated extracts from the Spanish version of Spare, Harry claims that Camilla, Queen Consort, leaked details of a private meeting between herself and William to the press, saying the information could only have come from a communications staffer Camilla had convinced King Charles to hire.
Harry says he and William were aware of Camilla as the "other woman" and had separate meetings with her during a "campaign" for Camilla to marry Charles, and compares seeing Camilla for the first time to getting an injection, writing, "This is nothing, close your eyes and you won't even feel it".
As for Harry's private conversation with Camilla, he claims she appeared "bored" and said it was a "pure formality" as he was not the heir or a major obstacle to her marriage to Charles. According to Harry, they had a small discussion about horses.
Per the translated Spanish extracts, Harry and William reportedly promised Charles that they would welcome Camilla into the family, but begged their father not to marry her.
Charles, Harry alleges, did not respond to their request, and Harry reportedly claims that he and William approved of Camilla but did not want Charles to marry for a second time following the death of their mother, Princess Diana.
Diana and Charles married in 1981, separated in 1992, and divorced in 1996. Diana died in Paris one year later, in 1997.
According to Charles' biography Prince of Wales by Jonathan Dimbleby, Charles and Camilla's affair began in 1986, and they made their relationship public a year after Diana's death.
Harry also claims that there was a campaign for Camilla to marry Charles and eventually become Queen, and he and William accepted the relationship and asked in exchange for a marriage not to occur between their father and the now Queen Consort.
He reportedly writes that he wondered whether Camilla would be his "wicked stepmother" and claimed he and William would be willing to forgive Camilla in "their hearts" if she could make their father happy – but did not want a marriage between them.
Charles and Camilla married in a small ceremony in 2005.
According to People, Harry recalls the intense pain he felt in his attempt to find closure over his mother's death in 1997.
Part of finding that closure was an attempt at reliving her final moments himself, which he did by asking his driver in 2007, when he was attending the Rugby World Cup in Paris, to drive him through Pont de l'Alma at the precise speed Diana was being driven at before she died – 65 miles per hour (approx. 104 kilometres per hour) – which he says is what police had said despite the press' initial reporting of a 120 miles per hour speed (approx. 193 kilometres per hour).
"Billy [passenger in the car] added that if the driver ever revealed to another human that we'd asked him to do this, we'd find him and there would be hell to pay," Harry reportedly writes.
"Off we went, weaving through traffic, cruising past the Ritz, where Mummy had her last meal, with her boyfriend, that August night. Then we came to the mouth of the tunnel. We zipped ahead, went over the lip at the tunnel's entrance, the bump that supposedly sent Mummy's Mercedes veering off course.
"But the lip was nothing. We barely felt it," Harry reportedly says, saying how he always imagined it as being a long, "treacherous" tunnel that was "inherently dangerous" but it wasn't. Rather, he says it was a passageway with "no reason" anyone should die inside.
Harry says they did it again, and he said it was a "bad idea" as it did give him closure but closure didn't bring him peace like he thought. It only intensified the pain.
William reportedly was also in the car in the tunnel with Harry on this same day, with Page Six saying the drive prompted the brothers to speak about the crash for "the first time ever."
"We talked about the recent inquest. A joke, we both agreed. The final written report was an insult. Fanciful, riddled with basic factual errors and gaping logical holes. It raised more questions than it answered," Harry writes, noting how they decided to call for the inquiry to be reopened but were talked out of it by "the powers that be".
Spare is set to be released in Australia on January 11, but according to The Sun, was reportedly accidentally put on sale five days early in Spain. Members of the public were briefly able to pick up copies of En La Sombra, which translates to "In the Shadow", before the books were quickly pulled.
As for Harry's pre-launch interviews for Spare, which are set to contain more allegations against the British royal family, UK's ITV will be airing their sit-down interview first on Sunday at 9pm (8am Monday AEDT).
This will be followed by CBS' 60 Minutes in the US at 7.30pm Sunday local time (11.30am Monday AEDT) and ABC's Good Morning America on Monday morning local time, followed by CBS' The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night local time, which is Wednesday afternoon Australia time.
The British royal family are understood to not be commenting on any allegations made by Harry in the memoir.
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