Harry’s ‘wild child’ years before becoming a woke warrior

Prince Harry has made several revelations in his Spare memoir, including that he first took cocaine at the age of 17.

He revealed that he was offered the class A drug while at someone’s house during a shooting trip, and also experimented with magic mushrooms.

While the revelations have shocked some royal fans, it was no secret that Harry once had a reputation for being something of a party animal. He also had an intermittent smoking habit, which he reportedly gave up when he met Meghan.

With reports of booze-filled foreign trips and regular nights out at Mayfair’s Mahiki club, the Duke of Sussex was the quintessential royal party boy.

The king’s youngest son was often on the front pages of newspapers, stumbling out of nightclubs and up to mischief.

His antics so worried the royal family that in 2002, five years after the death of his mother Princess Diana, Harry, then 17, checked into a rehabilitation clinic in Peckham, south-east London.

At the time it was reported that King Charles was concerned after his youngest son admitted to smoking cannabis and drinking alcohol at private parties in Highgrove.

After the reports emerged, a spokesperson for St James’s Palace told the News of the World: “This is a serious matter that was resolved within the family, and is now in the past and closed.”

Although it is believed that Harry did not spend much time at the centre, called Featherstone Lodge, it was reported that he was taken there during the day to give him a “brief, sharp shock”.

The Mail on Sunday reported at the time that Harry had been involved in a police investigation at the Rattlebone Inn in Malmesbury, Gloucestershire. The young prince was thought to have engaged in a mock fight and also allegedly cursed at a French employee.

The pub owner had told the paper that Harry was ‘banned’ and ‘everyone knows it’; however, she later told the PA news agency that all members of the Royal Family were welcome at the facility.

However, Harry’s party habits remained with his antics often caught on camera over the years as he struggled with being the center of attention.

In 2004, he got into a ‘fight’ with paparazzi after leaving the Pangea nightclub near Piccadilly.

At the time, a spokesman for Prince Harry said: “Prince Harry was hit in the face by a camera as photographers crowded around him as he got into a car.” By moving the camera away, it is understood that he cut his lip from a photographer.

The following year, Harry found himself embroiled in further controversy when he attended a costume party thrown by Olympic jumper Richard Meade disguised as a Nazi.

The then 20-year-old made headlines around the world after the photos graced the front page of The Sun newspaper.

After the party, a source told the Daily Mail: “If this was his idea of ​​a prank then he went down like a lead balloon.”

Harry issued a humiliating apology shortly after the image was posted.

He said: ‘I am very sorry if I have caused any offense or embarrassment to anyone. It was a poor wardrobe choice and I apologize.

The Duke of Sussex has since addressed the incident, both in Spare and in Harry & Meghan, the Sussexes’ Netflix documentary.

In the documentary, he recalled his embarrassment at the misjudgment and revealed how he had met with Holocaust survivors and the Chief Rabbi of London in the wake of the controversy.

However, in an excerpt from Spare, he appears to be trying to place the blame for the incident on the Prince and Princess of Wales.

page six reported that Kate and William “howled” at the idea of ​​him dressing in Nazi regalia, as Harry claimed they suggested he don the costume to the “Native and Colonial” themed party.

Quieter years followed for the young Prince as Harry founded his charity Sentebale and carried out projects in Botswana and Lesthotho (the charity being co-founded by Prince Seeiso of Lesotho).

While he was still enjoying a good night out, the Duke of Sussex got smarter about staying under the radar, and was even reported to have walked in and out of Chelsea’s Foreclosures nightclub via the fire escape in 2010.

And he continued to party incognito, reportedly enjoying a late-night drinking session the night before he was cast as best man at Prince William’s wedding to Kate Middleton.

A source told the Daily Mail that Harry had been out until 3am the night before William’s wedding to Chelsy Davy and Pippa Middleton, and left the party venue (The Goring Hotel, where the Middletons were staying) with a big jump from above that injured his ankle. .

The source said: “People were shocked to see him there so late before one of the biggest wedding days of the decade, and even more shocked when he jumped off the balcony and landed with a thump.”

“He had been having trouble climbing over the railings to get into position, so when he jumped over the edge he did it quite unsteadily and landed awkwardly next to a flower bed.”

They added: “People were laughing and joking that his fall might have seen him walking through Westminster Abbey the next morning with a broken leg.” At one point it was thought that he had sprained his ankle.

Later that year, on a booze-filled trip to Hvar in Croatia the following year, Harry was photographed again with his antics.

Then, aged 26, he was photographed at an outdoor Veneranda nightclub with two models, Ana Simovic, 23, and Svetlana Gavrilovic, 28, during a ‘out of control’ night out.

Posing with the couple and their friend Tom ‘Skippy’ Inskip, 25, was wearing a T-shirt given to him by concerned club bosses because he needed dry clothes.

The Daily Mail reported that Miss Gavrilovic described the Prince as a “true gentleman”.

She said: ‘He noticed us and came over to say ‘Hello’. She really surprised me how approachable she was.’

Veneranda’s staff later recounted how the prince was enjoying a ‘wild’ night, saying it ‘couldn’t be helped’ that he plunged into the off-limits pool while dancing to house music and drinking £5 shots of tequila.

After several years of cleaning up his image during his service in Afghanistan and through his philanthropic work, Harry arrived at the club on the Adriatic island at 2am, after a night of drinking vodka, whiskey and beer at a local bar.

It was reported that Harry continued to order drinks despite running out of money, before his bar tab was paid by his protection officers, without the staff initially realizing they were serving a royal.

Yet despite being photographed having fun on the dance floor, Harry’s boozing vacation in Croatia was relatively free of controversy.

But the following year, his boys’ trip to Las Vegas saw him hit the headlines once again, when a leaked nude photo began circulating online after a game of ‘strip billiards’.

The game took place during a party at Wynn’s Encore hotel in the Nevada party town, where around 25 people attended, including 15 ‘parties’.

After he and several others stripped naked during the game, grainy photos of the Prince surfaced after being published by TMZ, leading Harry to be questioned about the incident by his father and personal protection officers.

A decade after the controversy, Harry took it up on a podcast with Hollywood actor Dax Shepherd.

Speaking to Armchair Expert, he said: “At least I wasn’t running down the street, stripping or naked”, while laughing at the incident when Shepherd said it was “a party”.

Addressing the incident once more in his memoirs, Harry reveals that his father went easy on him when he arrived at Clarence House to face the music, and had been much more understanding than he expected.

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