Years before his shocking exit from the firm, Prince Harry was well known in the nation as the Royal Family’s ‘bad boy.’
Over the years, the now 38-year-old has been embroiled in a fair few Royal scandals that have shocked the UK and the world, including his wild nights out with pals in exclusive London nightclubs and THAT scandalous boys trip to Las Vegas.
Counting his short stint in rehab and his offence Halloween costume choices, Prince Harry proved himself to be the rebellious sibling compared to his heir-to-the-throne older brother, Prince William, who has managed to keep his controversies to a minimum.
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Not all of Harry’s controversies have been as a light hearted as a boozy night out, with some resulting in serious backlash from the British public.
But what are Prince Harry’s most controversial moments?
Rehab stint
(Image: PA)
Prince Harry got his name, The Party Prince whilst he was at school and when he started experimenting with booze and drugs . A royal correspondent for Vanity Fair recalled meeting him while he was supposed to be revising for his A-Levels.
“He was at the Kensington Roof Gardens knocking back vodka shots smoking Marlboro Lights surrounded by a group of gorgeous blondes. That was Prince Harry,” Katie Nicholl remembered.
(Image: PA)
A Channel 5 documentary titled Prince Harry: The Troubled Prince revealed that Harry was reportedly involved in pub lock-ins and was smoking cannabis.
When he was just 16, his father King Charles stepped in and forced Harry to visit a drug rehabilitation clinic. Harry was then taken to Featherstone Lodge, a residential centre for drug users in Peckham, to speak to recovering cocaine and heroin addicts.
Nazi uniform
(Image: Press Association)
Noted by Harry as one of the “biggest mistakes of my life” Harry’s Halloween costume, a distasteful Nazi outfit, hit the headlines in 2005.
Harry had attended an Africa themed party thrown by a friend of his and Prince William and the pair went to a London costume shop together. William chose a lion costume, while Harry chose the khaki and red uniform of the Nazi Afrika Korps.
A guest at the party sold a photo of Harry displaying his swastika armband, to The Sun, which immediately caused offense.
If the costume and the picture wasn’t bad enough, the backlash was further increased as the world would soon commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Naked in Las Vegas
(Image: Press Association)
In 2012, naked pictures of Prince Harry were leaked to the press a week before he was sent on tour in Afghanistan to serve in the Army. The young Prince had enjoyed a raucous getaway with pals where the embarrassing shot were sneakily taken by another party goer.
In other pictures from the holiday, Harry is seen splashing around in a private jacuzzi at his £1,000-a-day VIP bungalow at the MGM Grand in the heart of Las Vegas’ ironically named Sin City.
Looking back on the leakage, Harry laughed and said: “I remember thinking ‘oh wow they send princes into battle?’ That is not what I thought happened,”
He joked: “At least I wasn’t running down the Strip, stripping or naked.”
Nightclub scuffle
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After one of his crazy nights out in 2004, Harry was accused of “lashing out” at a photographer when leaving West End nightclub, Pangea.
The photographer, Chris Uncle claimed the then-20-year-old Prince had jumped out of his car and pushed a camera back into his face after Chris had tried to get pictures of him.
Chris told the Evening Standard that Harry had “deliberately lashed out” during the incident at 3am. Giving his statement, he said: “Then suddenly he burst out the car and lunged towards me as I was still taking pictures.”
“He lashed out and then deliberately pushed my camera into my face. The base of the camera struck me and cut my bottom lip. At the same time he was repeatedly saying ‘Why are you doing this? Why don’t you just leave me alone?”‘ he added.
Racial slurs
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In 2009, Harry faced a racism inquiry after he was filmed saying a racist remark while he served in the army. In the video footage taken three years prior saw a 21-year-old Prince Harry quietly say: “Ah, our little P*** friend Ahmed.”
The remarks were splashed in The News of the World and condemned by politicians and some British Muslim spokespeople.
The News of the World also accused Harry of insulting the Queen in another piece of footage where he’s heard completing a mock phone call with his grandmother.
He jokingly says: “I’ve got to go, got to go. Send my love to the corgis and Grandpa … God save you.”
Sibling rivalry
(Image: Getty Images)
Despite the fictitious rumors of a feud between Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton, in 2018 Katie Nicholl revealed the feud was actually between the Princes, Harry and William.
According to Katie’s sources, the brothers fell out around Christmas 2018, when Harry had stern words with William, claiming that he wasn’t doing enough to include Meghan in the Royal Family.
(Image: PA Archive/PA Images)
Then, in October 2019, Harry broke the internet when he confirmed there was a rift between the two. In the ITV documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, he said: “Part of this role and part of this job, and this family, being under the pressure that it’s under, inevitably, you know, stuff happens,”
He concluded: “But look, we’re brothers, we’ll always be brothers. And we’re certainly on different paths at the moment, but I’ll always be there for him, as I know he’ll always be there for me.”
Tell-all Oprah interview
(Image: Getty Images)
After announcing that they’d be “stepping back” from their role as senior royals in the firm, Harry and Meghan broke their silence in a tell-all bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Harry explained that he felt he needed to step away from his royal life in the fear that “history would be repeating itself”, in reference to his mother, Princess Diana and her treatment.
As well as the pair lifting the lid on their reasons for leaving the Royal Family, it was a tumultuous time for those at home as Prince Phillip had just done into hospital for a procedure for a heart condition.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
