Prince Harry is expected to drop another bombshell on the royal family in his highly anticipated tell-all, with an overseas news outlet claiming he blames his brother, Prince William, and his sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, for a scandal he recently described as “one of the biggest mistakes of my life”.
In his memoir Spare, due to be released next week, the Duke of Sussex claims William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, advised him to dress up as a Nazi for a party in 2005 and “howled with laughter” when they saw him in the costume.
Pictures of then-20-year-old Harry dressed as a Nazi soldier with a swastika emblazoned on his arm were leaked to a British tabloid, causing a public outcry.
William also attended the party - themed “Native and Colonial” - dressed in a lion outfit.
Now, Page Six reports Harry will lay at least part of the blame at the feet of his estranged brother and his wife - saying initially he was undecided on whether to attend the party dressed as a Nazi or a pilot.
Prince Harry on the Front page of The Sun in 2005. Photo / The Sun
Harry, now 38, and his wife Meghan Markle have been embroiled in a bitter spat with the royal family for years and quit the UK and their royal duties early in 2021.
In a recent interview for their Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, Harry called the incident “one of the biggest mistakes of my life”.
“I felt so ashamed afterwards. All I wanted to do was make it right. I sat down and spoke to the chief rabbi in London, which had a profound effect on me. I went to Berlin and spoke to a Holocaust survivor. I could have just ignored it and made the same mistakes over again in my life. But I learned from that.”
Harry also faced a backlash in 2009 when a video clip from three years earlier showed him using a racial slur to describe a Pakistani soldier.
Earlier on Thursday, The Guardian claimed to have been leaked an excerpt of Spare in which Harry describes a fight he had with his brother that quickly turned physical.
Describing a confrontation the brothers had in 2019, at Harry’s London home, the youngest of the brothers claimed William called his wife Meghan Markle “difficult, rude and abrasive” before the fight became more heated.
The news outlet reported the duke went on to write that the Prince of Wales, “grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and … knocked me to the floor”. Harry claimed the attack left him with visible injuries to his back.
Continuing to explain the events leading up to the alleged physical attack, Harry wrote that his brother came and saw him with the intention of discussing “the whole rolling catastrophe” of their relationship and struggles with the UK press. However, when William arrived, he was “piping hot”.
The alleged altercation occurred at Nottingham Cottage with Harry claiming William was unable to be rational about Harry and Meghan’s struggles and it resulted in the pair shouting at each other - before the older sibling and heir to the throne allegedly attacked him.
The theme of the book reportedly follows Harry’s resentment at being the “spare” with the prince writing on how it impacted his childhood, schooling, career as a royal and in the British army.
He also details his relationship with his parents and brother and his life with Meghan through their courtship, wedding and marriage to their own experience of parenthood.
