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Prince Harry has detailed the shocking aftermath of the controversial pictures that saw him dressed in a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party in 2005. The Duke of Sussex has made comments in his new book Spare, which is officially released in the UK on Tuesday but was released early in Spain earlier today. Harry, who was 20-years-old at the time, sparked outrage and was widely condemned when a photograph of him in the uniform complete with swastika was published on the front page of a newspaper.
Harry said following the pictures of him wearing a Nazi uniform, he thought he would “die of embarrassment” and the first reaction to the photos were: “What was I thinking?”
The duke wrote in a Spanish version of Spare seen by Express.co.uk: “When I saw the photos, I recognised immediately that I had my brain so switched off, that perhaps I could spend time like that.
“I wanted to leave and travel all across the UK, door to door, explaining to the people: ‘I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t want to offend anybody’.
“But that wouldn’t have changed anything. The opinion was fast and implacable. Or better I was a Nazi in the shadow of a mental breakdown.”
The tell-all memoir, which was ghostwritten by Pulitzer Prize winner J R Moehringer, promises to be packed full of explosive revelations and insight into the Royal Family – and there’s even an audiobook read by the Duke of Sussex himself.
You can buy your copy of Spare on Amazon.
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The Duke of Sussex said he looked for support from Prince William and although his older brother understood him, “he couldn’t say very much”.
Harry wrote he later called his father King Charles III and “to my surprise I found him serene”.
Initally suspicious, he thought Charles would consider his son’s predicament “like another opportunity to cement his public image”.
However, the Duke of Sussex said he was grateful at his father’s response, who treated it as a “mistake of the youth”.
READ MORE: The 10 most explosive moments from Prince Harry’s bombshell memoir
US website Page Six claimed the Duke of Sussex phoned William and Kate to ask whether he should chose a pilot’s uniform or a Nazi one for the fancy dress party.
The Prince and Princess of Wales chose the latter, and howled with laughter when he went home and tried it on for them.
Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace have both declined to comment on the claims made by Harry in his memoir.
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It will also come nearly three years after the Megxit crisis in early 2020 and almost two years after the Sussexes’ bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021.
Harry has filmed three television interviews in the lead up to his book’s release: ne with ITV’s Tom Bradby, which will air on Sunday at 9pm; one with CBS News’s Anderson Cooper, which is out on Sunday evening in the US; and a Good Morning America interview due to be broadcast on Monday morning.
In a clip released earlier today, ITV News At Ten presenter Mr Bradby challenges the duke on “invading the privacy of your most nearest and dearest without permission”.
Harry replies: “That would be the accusation from the people that don’t understand or don’t want to believe that my family have been briefing the press.”
Mr Bradby says: “Wouldn’t your brother say to you, ‘Harry, how could you do this to me after everything? After everything we went through?’ Wouldn’t that be what he would say?”
The Duke of Sussex responds: “He would probably say all sorts of different things.”
Spare is available to buy from all bookshops and audiobook providers from January 10th.
See today’s front and back pages, download the newspaper, order back issues and use the historic Daily Express newspaper archive.