Prince Harry makes an extraordinary attempt to blame Prince William and Kate Middleton for his decision to wear a Nazi uniform to a January 2005 costume party in his new memoir, Spare, an extract of which has leaked to Page Six.
Harry was 20 when he wore the shocking outfit to a friend’s party, prompting global outrage after a picture of him in a Swastika armband appeared on the front page of the British tabloid the Sun.
In the section of the book seen by Page Six, Harry writes that he was trying to choose between a pilot uniform or a Nazi uniform and called his brother for advice.
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“I phoned Willy and Kate, asked what they thought. Nazi uniform, they said.”
Harry adds that he later tried the outfit on in front of them: “They both howled. Worse than Willy’s leotard outfit! Way more ridiculous! Which, again, was the point.”
Harry’s dramatic attempt to implicate his brother and Kate by reheating the scandal contrasts with what looked like an attempt in his recent Netflix documentary series to show that he accepted responsibility for the episode and had learned from it.
In the Netflix show, he said, “I felt so ashamed afterwards. All I wanted to do was make it right. I sat down and spoke to the chief rabbi in London, which had a profound impact on me. I went to Berlin and spoke to a Holocaust survivor.
“I could have got on and ignored it and made the same mistakes over and over in my life, but I learned from that.”
Page Six quotes “a senior publishing source” who has read the book as saying: “It’s strange as you would think that Harry would take ownership of this and just move on and not drag his brother into it, but he makes it clear that he feels strongly about William’s role in the scandal.”
It is not the first time that William has been said to have had a role in the affair.
The author Robert Lacey wrote in his book, Battle of Brothers, “Harry chose his costume in conjunction with his elder brother” and that, “Harry resented the fact that William got away so lightly.”
Lacey said the Nazi uniform drama triggered several years of “no speaks” between the brothers.
In another excerpt leaked to the Guardian, Harry claimed that William threw him to the floor, breaking a dog bowl, during a fight in which William called Harry’s wife “difficult,” “rude,” and “abrasive.”
The publication of the extracts will come as a blow to publishers Penguin Random House, which had launched a massive security operation to keep the contents of the book secret until Tuesday’s launch.
