Prince Harry tricked into smoking a basil joint and royal nanny gave him secret swigs of gin
Prince Harry has shared another jaw dropping drug-taking episode in the most unlikely place.
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The Duke of Sussex’s teenage brag at being “experienced” with weed backfired on a safari trip when tour guides tricked him into smoking a fake joint.
In his searingly honest memoir Spare, read by News Corp a day ahead of its official publication, Prince Harry revealed he confessed to the guides sitting at a campfire in Botswana that he regularly smoked weed at prestigious Eton College for boys so they would share with him their marijuana.
Writing in his memories he recalls his brother William, now the Prince of Wales, shot him a look of horror when he confessed, aged 15, to their safari guides and aides he had been smoking drugs at school.
“One night around the fire all the guys on the trek discussed the river; stories about riding it, swimming it, boating it, fearing it, everyone talking over each other.
“I heard it all that night, the mysticism of the river, the sacredness of the river, the weirdness of the river.
“Speaking of weirdness, the smell of marijuana wafted on the air. The stories grew louder.
“I asked if I could try. Someone guffawed. Sod off! Willy looked at me in horror. But I wouldn’t back off,” he says.
“I pleaded my case. I was experienced, I said. Heads swung round. Really? Henners (friend at school) and I had recently pinched 26 packs of Smirnoff Ice and drank them until we passed out, I boasted,” the Duke continues.
“Plus Tiggy (the brothers’ nanny) always let me have a sip of her flask on stalking trips. Sloe gin, she was never without it,” he writes.
The Duke goes on: “I thought it was best to leave out the full breath of my experience. The adults exchanged side glances. One shrugged, rolled joint passed it to me.
“I took a puff. Coughed. Retched. African weed is much harsher than British weed. And the high was less too. But at least I was a man.
“No, I was still a wee baby. The joint was fresh basil wrapped in a bit of filthy rolling paper.”
Prince Harry talks about sleeping under canvas and watching wild game from open-topped Land Rovers in the heart of Botswana.
Describing his love for former royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke who accompanied the princes on the trip with three friends and two detectives, he reveals his late mother Diana saw her as a rival.
“Tiggy was our nanny but Tiggy couldn’t stand being called that, she should bite the hand off anyone who tried, ‘I’m not your nanny, I am your friend!’ he said.
“Mummy sadly didn’t see it that way. Mummy saw Tiggy not only as a nanny but as a rival. “It’s common knowledge that mummy suspected Tiggy was being groomed as her future replacement. Did mummy see her as her spare?
“Now the same woman who mummy feared would be her possible replacement was, how dreadful for mummy. Every hug, every pat on the head from Tiggy, therefore, must’ve unleashed some twinge of guilt, some throb of disloyalty and yet I don’t remember that.
“I remember only heart racing joy to have Tiggy next to me, to have her tell me to book my seat belt.”
Harry has detailed how he took cocaine, cannabis and magic mushrooms to “feel different,” revealing psychedelic drugs enable him to see “the truth”.
Writing that he smoked cannabis joints at Eton College he said: “Whenever we found ourselves in possession, we’d commandeer a tiny upstairs bathroom where we would form surprisingly thoughtful orderly lines.
“The smoker always straddled the loo beside the window, second boy leaned against the basin, the third and fourth boys sat in the empty bath, legs dangling over, waiting their return,” he writes.
Can you take a hit or two, blow the smoke out of the window then move onto the next station, in rotation until the spliff was gone. Then we’d go into our rooms and giggle over an episode or two of a new show, Family Guy. I felt an inexplicable bond with Stewie, prophet without honour.”
HARRY’S COKE USE AND WILD WEED HALLUCINATIONS
The Duke of Sussex and former “party prince” has admitted he had tried cocaine with friends at a hunting weekend when he was just 17, and had since “consumed some more”.
In his new, leaked memoir titled Spare, Prince Harry wrote: “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,” he said.
“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.
“At that time, I was as capable of lying to myself as I had lied to that staff member.”
Prince Harry detailed his first experience with magic mushrooms that led to wild hallucinations.
He described how his friends went to the fridge for a drink, writing: “While the door was open, we spotted a huge box of black diamond mushroom chocolates.
“Someone behind me said they were for everybody. Help yourself, boys.
“My mate and I grabbed several, gobbled them, washed them down with tequila.”
But that led to vivid hallucinations where he thought the toilet and a rubbish bin were talking to him.
He said: “Beside the toilet was a round silver bin, the kind with a foot pedal to open the lid. I stared at the bin. It stared back. Then it became . . . a head.
“I stepped on the pedal and the head opened its mouth. A huge open grin.
“I laughed, turned away, took a p***. Now the loo became a head too. The bowl was its gaping maw, the hinges of the seat were its piercing silver eyes. It said, ‘Aaah’.”
FINDING OUT ABOUT DIANA’S DEATH
He also recalled the moment he was told about his mother’s death when his father delivered the news coldly “like a politician” and did not hug him.
In an emotional excerpt his book, Prince Harry claims King Charles sat on the end of his bed to reveal that Princess Diana had been killed in a car crash in Paris, saying, “My dear son, mum has had a car accident”.
Writing about the time his father told him of Princess Diana’s death, he said he “felt like a politician” and once he had told Harry, then 12, and William, 15, he left to meet grieving Britons.
In a further dig at his father, he claims in the 557-page tell-all the King opened up about being bullied at school and “nearly never made it” but carried teddy bears around with him at the time to cope.
The Duke also said that for years he thought his mother was in hiding following her tragic death.
In one excerpt, he writes that he admitted his thoughts to Prince William, after his older brother missed a yearly ski trip to Klosters because he hated posing for photographers.
Prince Harry claims his brother told him he also used to believe the same.
Writing in his autobiography already selling in Spain before its official publication on January 10, the Duke of Sussex candidly admits he killed 25 people whilst serving in Afghanistan writing he is neither proud nor ashamed of “taking human lives” as it was simply his job as a soldier.
The Duke spent 10 years in the Army, including two frontline tours to Afghanistan.
Publishing sources at Penguin Random House had said arrangements for the release of Harry‘s “explosive” memoir on Tuesday were closely guarded and being managed in meticulous detail, with only a handful of senior executives informed of the exact details.
It is believed the book chain in Spain mistakenly released the book in advance of its January 10 publishing date.
Prince Harry also insists he broke the pact with the Prince of Wales not to hurl barbs at each other after a physical spat with William who had branded Meghan “rude,” ”difficult” and “abrasive”.
He writes that he and William had a screaming match at his London Nottingham Cottage to discuss his relationship with the Suits American actress in 2019 when he branded her “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”.
Describing what he claims happened next, the former soldier insisted he was scared, writing that he set down the water and William “called me another name, then came at me.”
“It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor,” he writes.
“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’.
Harry also writes that when he was born, King Charles allegedly told Diana: ‘Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an heir and a spare - my work is done.’
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Originally published as Prince Harry tricked into smoking a basil joint and royal nanny gave him secret swigs of gin
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