Prince Harry’s autobiography ‘Spare’, which was scheduled to be released on January 10, was leaked on Thursday after a Spanish-language version of the memoir mistakenly went on sale.
Though the book was hurriedly withdrawn from shelves in Spain, some of the copies were obtained by the media and key revelations were made public.
Here are some of the key claims and revelations made by Prince Harry in the memoir:
Harry claims William physically attacked him
Prince Harry in his book claimed that he was physically “attacked” by his older brother Prince William during an argument in 2019 amid tensions in their relations because of his marriage to Meghan Markle.
“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,” the Guardian quotes Harry’s book as saying. “I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me.”
The brothers had physical fights when younger
During the fight the two brothers had in 2019, Harry said William urged him to hit back, citing fights they had as children.
However, Harry refused and William left before returning, looking regretful and apologising.
The brothers call each other “Willy” and “Harold”
Harry wrote in his memoir that he gave his brother a glass of water after the fight and said, “Willy, I can’t speak to you when you’re like this.”
“I didn’t attack you, Harold,” responded William — whom Harry calls “Willy” — using a nickname for his brother, whose birth name is Henry.
William Called Meghan “difficult” and “rude”
Harry wrote that during a disagreement in the kitchen of his London home in 2019, William called his wife Meghan Markle “difficult,” “rude” and “abrasive,” before tackling him to the ground as the pair continued to argue.
Harry told him he was parroting the press narrative about his wife.
Prince Harry says he killed 25 in Afghanistan
Prince Harry also acknowledged killing 25 people during his time as an Apache helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. The 38-year-old Duke of Sussex served two tours of duty against the Taliban, first as a forward air controller calling in airstrikes in 2007-2008, then flying the attack helicopter in 2012-2013.
He said he was neither proud nor ashamed of doing so and described eliminating the targets as like removing “chess pieces” from a board.
‘Took cocaine but didn’t like it’
Prince Harry also admitted in his new memoir to taking cocaine aged 17, but says “it wasn’t very fun”. The experience appears to have come after his father, King Charles III, took Harry to a drug rehabilitation clinic to meet recovering addicts, when he was found to have been drinking underage and smoking marijuana.
At the time, the revelations earned him the nickname “Harry Pothead” in the British tabloids but Charles’s actions were widely praised as responsible parenting.
Harry told his therapist about the fight before he told Meghan
After the fighting incident, Harry said that William later returned to the scene, “looking regretful, and apologised” and asked him not to tell Meghan that he had “attacked” him.
Harry wrote that he did not immediately tell his wife, but called the therapist. However, Meghan noticed the “scrapes and bruises”, forcing Harry to tell her about the attack.
Harry claims William and Kate encouraged him to wear the Nazi uniform
Harry was 20-year-old when the Sun newspaper published a front-page photo of him dressed as a Nazi soldier with a red armband emblazoned with a big swastika.
The picture was taken at a costume party with a “Native and Colonial” theme in 2005, where William was also a guest and was dressed in a homemade lion outfit.
In his memoir, he claimed that he phoned William and Kate to ask them whether he should wear a pilot’s uniform or a Nazi one for the fancy dress party and the couple said the latter, US website Page Six reported. And the two howled with laughter when he went home and tried it on for them.
Heir and ‘Spare’
The book also mentioned Harry’s decades of disenchantment with his privileged, scrutinized and constrained royal life. In it he alludes to the book’s title, recounting the alleged words of his father, then Prince Charles, to his mother, Princess Diana, on the day of his birth, “Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an heir and a spare — my work is done.”
While William was destined from birth to be king, Harry, who is fifth in line to the throne behind his brother and William’s three children, has often appeared to struggle with the more ambiguous role of “spare.”
Harry reveals moment he learned of Diana’s death
In his memoir, Harry also wrote about his mother Diana’s death in the car accident. He said that King Charles sat on the end of his bed at Balmoral Castle and told him, “My dear son, mum has had a car accident.”
The duke claims his father did not hug him and that he later “felt like a politician” as he greeted members of the public in the wake of her death, according to the Sun.
Harry and William ‘begged’ Charles not to marry Camilla
Harry claimed that he and Prince 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.
Charles Pleaded The Sons to Stop Fighting
The brothers’ father, King Charles III, pleaded with his sons to stop fighting at a meeting after the funeral of his father, Prince Philip, in April 2021.
“Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery,” he told them, according to the memoir.
Harry also describes the “secret meeting” as resembling a duel rather than reconciliation.
William claimed he did not know why Harry had exiled himself in the United States, Harry writes, while his father “was looking at me with an expression that said, ‘me neither'”.
Losing Virginity
Harry recounts losing his virginity in a field behind a busy pub, to an “older lady” who “loved horses very much”.
But he says it was a “humiliating episode” and rued it happening in the open, where they might have been seen.
(With inputs from agencies)
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