The Biggest Bombshells From Prince Harry’s Memoir, ‘Spare’

Ever since July 2021, when Prince Harry announced that he was writing an “intimate and heartfelt” memoir, the royal family has been bracing for impact. Now, just days from the release of Spare, advance copies of the book have leaked to journalists—and it appears that Buckingham Palace was right to worry. Early reports indicate that Spare pulls no punches in recounting private family moments and intimate conversations, meaning that the consequences for the royals could be staggering. As the book comes into clearer view, we’re rounding up all the biggest bombshells.

Brothers Coming to Blows

The Guardian details a shocking episode in which Prince Harry alleges that he and Prince William (whom he calls “my beloved brother and arch-nemesis”) once came to blows as their relationship fell apart over the Duke of Sussex’s marriage. Describing a confrontation at his London home in 2019, Harry writes that William called his wife, Duchess Meghan, “difficult,” “rude,” and “abrasive.” Harry told his brother that he was repeating the press narrative about Duchess Meghan, and that he expected better. The confrontation escalated until William “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.” According to Harry, William said, “You don’t need to tell Meg about this.” Harry didn’t, but when the Duchess noticed “visible scrapes and bruises” on his back, he came clean. “She wasn’t that surprised, and wasn’t all that angry,” the prince writes. “She was terribly sad.”

According to sources close to Prince William interviewed by Vanity Fair, William is furious that his brother has leaked the details of private conversations. The source described “a massive trust issue” between the brothers, with William worried that anything he says to Harry can and will be made public. Another source told Vanity Fair, “William worries everything and anything he says will be made public. For now he isn’t going to be commenting or reacting, his plan is to ride this all out. At the end of the day he will still be the Prince of Wales, and that’s what he is focused on.”

About Queen Consort Camilla…

The Sun, working from a Spanish copy of Spare, reports that Prince Harry and Prince William “begged” their father, King Charles III, not to marry now-Queen Consort Camilla, with whom he’d had an affair while married to their late mother, Princess Diana. The princes promised to welcome Camilla into the family, but desperately wished that she and Charles would remain unmarried. Harry alleges that Charles did not reply. According to Vanity Fair, King Charles is said to be concerned that Queen Consort Camilla will not escape Spare unscathed. “The King is less worried about the attacks on him, but he would be very upset if Harry takes a pop at Camilla and there is every chance Harry could do that,” a source close to the king told the magazine.

How Prince Harry Learned About the Queen’s Death

According to Sky News, Prince Harry learned about the death of Queen Elizabeth II from the BBC. He describes seeing the news on his phone after his plane landed: “I checked the BBC webpage. My grandmother had died. My father was the King. I put on a black tie, stepped off the plane into heavy drizzle.”

Harry also claims that King Charles told him Duchess Meghan should not join the grieving family at Balmoral, the Scottish estate where the queen died in September. “He told me I was welcome at Balmoral, but… without her,” Harry writes. “He started to explain his reasons, but they didn’t make any sense at all, and it was disrespectful as well. I did not tolerate it from him. Don’t even think about talking about my wife like that. Repentant, he said, stammering, that he simply didn’t want the place to be full of people. Nobody’s wife was going to go, not even Kate, he told me, so Meg shouldn’t either.”

Prince Harry Killed 25 People?!

Harry writes that during his decade of service in the British Army, which involved two tours of duty in Afghanistan, he killed 25 people. “It seemed essential for me not to be afraid of that figure,” the Prince writes, per Sky News. “Among the many things I learned in the Armed Forces, one of the most important was to be accountable for my own actions.” He continues: “So my number: twenty-five. It was not something that filled me with satisfaction, but I was not ashamed either.”

Inside Prince Harry’s Misspent Youth

In his younger years, Prince Harry was often photographed partying and enjoyed a reputation as a royal bad boy. According to Sky News, Spare delves into this misspent youth, with Harry remembering the first time he snorted cocaine at seventeen years old. He writes, “Of course I had been taking cocaine at that time. At someone’s house, during a hunting weekend, I was offered a line, and since then I had consumed some more. It wasn’t very fun, and it didn’t make me feel especially happy as seemed to happen to others, but it did make me feel different, and that was my main objective. To feel. To be different. I was a seventeen-year-old willing to try almost anything that would alter the pre-established order. At least, that’s what I was trying to convince myself of.”

Speaking of Harry’s years as a royal bad boy, remember the scandal when he dressed as a Nazi soldier for a Halloween party? In Spare, he reveals that the Prince and Princess of Wales encouraged it. According to The New York Post, Harry writes that William and Kate “howled with laughter” when they saw Harry in costume. This isn’t the first we’re hearing of William’s involvement in this scandal; royal historian Robert Lacey previously reported that “Harry chose his costume in conjunction with his elder brother—the future King William V, then 22, who had laughed all the way back to Highgrove (Charles’ country home) with the younger sibling he was supposed to be mentoring—and then onwards to the party together.” According to Lacey, Harry felt “resentful and even alienated” by how William emerged from the ensuing scandal unscathed, while he was widely criticized.

A Wedding to Remember

Harry really isn’t holding back. According to Page Six, Spare reveals that during Prince William’s 2011 wedding to Kate Middleton, Harry was suffering from a frostbitten penis. You see, Harry had just returned from a 200-mile Arctic charity walk at the North Pole, which left him with a frostbitten “todger.” He did what any of us would do: slathered his penis in Elizabeth Arden cream, suffered through the wedding, then went to the doctor after the festivities had ended. Royals: they’re just like us!

Watch this space for updates as we continue to learn more.

Books and Fiction Editor

Adrienne Westenfeld is the Books and Fiction Editor at Esquire, where she oversees books coverage, edits fiction, and curates the Esquire Book Club.