Here are the biggest revelations from Spare.
Then-Prince Charles allegedly told Princess Diana he was ‘done’ after Prince Harry was born.
Prince Harry alleged in Spare that after his birth, his father King Charles III (then Prince Charles) told his mother, Princess Diana, “Now you’ve given me an heir and a spare—my work is done.”
Prince Harry addresses rumors of James Hewitt being his real father—and King Charles’ reaction to them.
Prince Harry alleges that his father would often make cruel remarks about whether or not he was Harry’s biological father. “Pa liked telling stories, and this was one of the best in his repertoire. He’d always end with a burst of philosophizing … ‘Who knows if I’m really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I’m even your real father?’" Harry wrote. “He’d laugh and laugh, though it was a remarkably unfunny joke, given the rumor circulating just then that my actual father was one of Mummy’s former lovers: Major James Hewitt. One cause of this rumor was Major Hewitt’s flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism,” he continued. Harry pointed out that Hewitt and Diana met well after his birth, making the rumors completely bogus, but that it didn’t stop anyone from speculating about it.
Prince Harry alleged that Prince William felt guilt over King Charles’ affair with Camilla during his marriage to Princess Diana.
Prince Harry writes in Spare that when his mother talked about there being “three in the marriage” in her famous Panorama interview, he and Prince William were hit hard, but that his brother in particular felt responsible somewhat for his father’s infidelity. “She left Willy and me out of the equation. We didn’t understand what was going on with her and Pa, certainly, but we intuited enough, we sensed the presence of the Other Woman, because we suffered the downstream effects,” Harry wrote. “[It] confused him, tormented him, and when those suspicions were confirmed he felt tremendous guilt for having done nothing, said nothing, sooner." Harry noted that he was too young at the time to understand what was happening between his parents, but that he did notice “the lack of stability, the lack of warmth and love, in our home.”
Prince Harry said that Charles barely consoled him when Princess Diana died.
Prince Harry recalls in Spare that now-King Charles III wasn’t particularly warm nor comforting towards him when Diana died in a car crash in August 1997. Anwar Hussein/Getty Images “Pa didn’t hug me. He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances, how could he be expected to show them in such a crisis?” he wrote. “His hand did fall once more on my knee and he said, ‘It’s going to be OK.’ That was quite a lot for him. Fatherly, hopeful, kind. And so very untrue,” he added. He recalled of their conversation about Diana’s death, “[Dad] sat down on the edge of the bed. He put a hand on my knee. ‘Darling boy, Mummy’s been in a car crash.’ I remember thinking: ‘Crash … OK. But she’s all right? Yes?’ I vividly remember that thought flashing through my mind. And I remember waiting patiently for Pa to confirm that indeed Mummy was all right. And I remember him not doing that.”
Prince Harry and Prince William didn’t want Charles to marry Camilla.
Prince Harry alleges in Spare that both he and his brother urged King Charles (then the Prince of Wales) not to marry Camilla. “Despite Willy and me urging him not to, Pa was going ahead. We pumped his hand, wished him well. No hard feelings," he wrote. “We recognized that he was finally going to be with the woman he loved, the woman he’d always loved." “Fate might’ve intended for him in the first place," he added. “Whatever bitterness or sorrow we felt over the closing of another loop in Mummy’s story, we understood that it was besides the point.” Harry also compared his stepmother to fairy-tale villains. “I remember wondering … if she would be cruel to me; if she would be like all the evil stepmothers in the stories,” he wrote, adding, “Willy had been suspicious of the Other Woman for a long time, which confused and tormented him. When those suspicions were confirmed, he felt agonizing remorse for not having done or said anything before.” In Harry & Meghan, Harry pointedly said that most men in the royal family don’t marry for love, but for whoever can “fit the mold” of the position.
Prince Harry was upset that Camilla used his old bedroom as a dressing room.
Prince Harry recalled being upset when Camilla transformed one of his old bedrooms into a dressing room. Anwar Hussein/WireImage Harry claims that almost as soon as he moved out of his father’s Clarence House residence, Camilla converted the room into a wardrobe. “I tried not to care. But especially the first time I saw it, I cared,” he wrote.
Prince Harry lost his virginity to an older woman.
Prince Harry doesn’t name the woman nor specify when it happened, but he writes in Spare that when he lost his virginity that it was an “inglorious episode … She liked horses, quite a lot, and treated me not unlike a young stallion.” “Quick ride, after which she’d smacked my rump and sent me to grace,” he continued. “Among the many things about it that were wrong. It happened in a grassy field behind a busy pub.”
Prince Harry used cocaine in the past.
Though he long denied ever using drugs, Prince Harry came clean in Spare about using cocaine as a teen, recalling the first time he tried it being at a hunting weekend with friends. “I’d been offered a line, and I’d done a few more since,” Harry wrote. “It wasn’t much fun, and it didn’t make me particularly happy, as it seemed to make everyone around me. But it did make me feel different, and that was the main goal.” He previously has spoken about using drugs and alcohol to numb the pain he still felt years after the death of Diana.
Prince Harry said Prince William and Kate Middleton encouraged him to wear his notorious Nazi costume.
While planning to attend a colonizers and natives-themed party—already massively distasteful, tone deaf and minimizing of the damage the British empire wreaked over the entire world—Prince Harry asked Kate Middleton and Prince William for help deciding whether to dress up as a Nazi or as a pilot. JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images “I phoned Willy and Kate, asked what they thought. Nazi uniform, they said,” Harry recalled in Spare, adding that he went to their house to model the Nazi uniform for them. “They both howled. Worse than Willy’s leotard outfit! Way more ridiculous! Which, again, was the point.” Prince Harry was 20 years old at the time of the incident. So far none of the royals have made any significant statements on how colonization has harmed the world.
Prince Harry got frostbite on his penis before Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding.
Among details that he absolutely needed to share, Prince Harry writes in Spare that he got frostbite on his nether regions during a trip to Antarctica ahead of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s royal wedding in April 2011. “The pre-wedding dinner was pleasant, jolly, despite Willy visibly suffering from standard groom jitters,” he wrote. “I regaled the company with tales of the [South] Pole. Pa was very interested and sympathetic about the discomfort of my frostnipped ears and cheeks, and it was an effort not to overshare and tell him also about my equally tender penis.” He continued, “Upon arriving home I’d been horrified to discover that my nether regions were frostnipped as well, and while the ears and cheeks were already healing, the todger wasn’t.”
Prince Harry and Prince William are circumcised
As if it were anyone’s business, Prince Harry confirmed that he and brother Prince William are circumcised. When discussing his frostbitten privates, he explained, “My penis was a matter of public record, and indeed some public curiosity,” Harry writes. “The press had written about it extensively. There were countless stories in books, and papers (even The New York Times) about Willy and me not being circumcised.” “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.”
Prince Harry thinks he lost his brother when Prince William and Kate Middleton got married.
Prince Harry felt a sense of loss when Prince William and Kate Middleton married in April 2011. Kirsty Wigglesworth - WPA Pool/Getty Images “The brother I’d escorted into Westminster Abbey that morning was gone—forever. Who could deny it?” he wrote in Spare. “He’d never again be first a foremost Willy. We’d never again ride together across the Lesotho countryside with capes blowing behind us. We’d never again share a horsey-smelling cottage while learning to fly. Who shall separate us? Life, that’s who.” “And I recall Willy walking her back up the aisle, and as they disappeared through the door, into the carriage that would convey them to Buckingham Palace, into the eternal partnership they’d pledged,” he continued. “I recall thinking: ‘Goodbye.’”
Prince William and Kate Middleton were ‘religious’ fans of Suits before meeting Meghan Markle, according to Prince Harry.
Prince Harry writes in Spare that Prince William and Kate Middleton invited him over to chat when they noticed a change in his behavior. It was then that he revealed he was dating someone new, and when Harry told the Cambridges that it was Meghan Markle, an actress on Suits that it rocked their worlds. USA Network/NBCUniversal “Their mouths fell open. They turned to each other. Then Willy turned to me and said, ‘F–k off?’” he recalled, adding that they explained to him that “they were regular—nay, religious—viewers of Suits.” He said they barraged him with questions but that he was cautious not to reveal too much too soon. “All this time I’d thought Willy and Kate might not welcome Meg into the family, but now I had to worry about them hounding her for an autograph,” he wrote.
Prince Harry says watching Meghan Markle’s sex scenes was a ‘mistake.’
You live and you learn! USA Network In Spare, Prince Harry recalled Googling Meghan Markle when they first started dating and falling into a rabbit hole of watching her Suits sex scenes with co-star Patrick J. Adams. Harry joked, “It would take electric-shock therapy to get those images out of my head.” “I’d witnessed her and a castmate mauling each other in some sort of office or conference room,” Harry wrote. “I didn’t need to see such things live.”
Prince William told Prince Harry to slow down in his relationship with Meghan Markle.
Prince Harry recalled one of the first times he grew miffed with his family’s attitude towards his now-wife: When Prince Harry told Prince William he thought Meghan Markle was the one, William urged him to slow his roll. Chris Jackson/Getty Images “He still said to slow down,” Harry wrote. He said that William warned him, “‘She’s an American actress, after all, Harold. Anything might happen.’”
Prince Harry said Meghan Markle took Kate Middleton aback when she asked to borrow lip gloss.
Prince Harry says that Meghan Markle rubbed Kate Middleton the wrong way when she asked the now Princess of Wales to borrow lip gloss before they had to speak at an event in 2018, noting that the moment was “awkward” and calling Meghan’s request “an American thing.” CHRIS JACKSON/AFP via Getty Images “Kate, taken aback, went into her handbag and reluctantly pulled out a small tube,” Harry wrote in Spare. “Meg squeezed some onto her finger and applied it to her lips. Kate grimaced.” He said that it shouldn’t have been a big deal, but that once the press sensed there may be tension, the stories never stopped, explaining that Middleton realized then that she was “going to be compared to, and forced to compete with, Meg.”
Prince Harry and Prince William got into a physical fight over Meghan Markle.
In what was supposed to be a civil discussion over difficulties Prince Harry and Meghan had adjusting to royal life, Harry recalled that he and Prince William got into a shouting match. Harry alleged that William referred to Meghan as “abrasive” and “difficult,” which Harry felt was simply mimicking the media narratives that surrounded his wife. When things got heated to the point of insulting one another, Harry went into the kitchen of his Nottingham Cottage home to get a glass of water for William, but the storm didn’t stop. Emilio Morenatti - WPA Pool/Getty Images “He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast,” Harry wrote. “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. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.” Next, find out everything Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have said about racism in the royal family.
