Prince Harry admits doing cocaine as teenager ‘to feel different’

Extracts of the Duke of Sussex’s autobiography have leaked ahead of the official release

Maanya Sachdeva
Thursday 05 January 2023 19:18 GMT
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Prince Harry reportedly details alleged physical attack by William in new book

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Prince Harry has admitted taking cocaine when he was 17 years old.

In his new autobiography Spare, the Duke of Sussex explained that he took the illegal drug ‘to feel different’.

“Of course I had been taking cocaine at that time,” Sky News quotes from the leaked book. “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 17-year-old willing to try almost anything that would alter the pre-established order.”

It is the latest in a series of dramatic revelations in the book, which is due to be released next week.

The Duke has branded the Prince of Wales his “arch nemesis” in the bombshell book, claiming he was physically attacked by William and knocked to the floor during a furious confrontation over his wife Meghan.

The book ‘Spare’ has released early in Spain
The book ‘Spare’ has released early in Spain (REUTERS)

Harry also alleges that it was William and the Princess of Wales who encouraged him to wear a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party 2005 and “howled” with laughter when they saw it.

He calls William both his “arch nemesis” and his “beloved brother” in his autobiography Spare and has admitted there has always been competition between them in their heir/spare roles.

Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace have declined to comment on the leaked claims from Harry’s book, which emerged five days before the explosive tell-all memoir is due to be published.

The Duke of Sussex does not hold back in the autobiography
The Duke of Sussex does not hold back in the autobiography (Getty Images)

Other reported revelations include how the brothers call each other “Willy” and “Harold” and that Charles pleaded with his sons during a tense meeting after the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral: “Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery.”

The book comes just weeks after Harry and Meghan’s bombshell Netflix documentary – in which Harry said he was left terrified when William screamed and shouted at him at a tense Sandringham summit in 2020.

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