Prince Harry has a history of being candid and 2023’s no different. With the release of his best-selling memoir, Spare, the Duke of Sussex has shared many details about his life. Not only has he touched on Princess Diana’s death, his “archnemesis” dynamic with Prince William, and meeting Meghan Markle, the 38-year-old’s shared random things about himself. Ahead are 10 of our picks from Spare.
1. Prince Harry listened to a sounds of Africa CD to help him sleep
Following his mother’s 1997 death, Harry went to Africa, which, over time, became a place of comfort to him. So much so that when he attended Eton as a teenager, he played a sounds of Africa to help him sleep.
“I listened over and over to my go-to soothing CD: “Sounds of the Okavango. Forty tracks: Crickets. Baboons. Rainstorm. Thunder. Birds. Lions and hyenas scrapping over a kill,” he said in Spare.
“At night, shutting off the lights, I’d hit play,” he continued. “My room sounded like a tributary of the Okavango. I was the only way I could sleep.”
2. Prince Harry watched ‘Friends’ while folding laundry and doing household chores
Harry revealed himself as a Friends fan in Spare. Not only did he call himself a “Friends fanatic” but also a “Chandler,” referring to Matthew Perry’s Friends character.
Furthermore, Harry shared he’d had a crush on Courteney Cox and ate magic mushrooms at her California home. However, Cox’s version of events differs from Harry’s.
3. Meghan Markle FaceTimed Prince Harry after their first date and saw him watching ‘cartoons’
Following his first date with the Duchess of Sussex in July 2016, Harry headed to a friend’s house where he recounted the details.
“Out came the tequila. Out came the weed. We drank and smoked and watched … Inside Out. An animated movie … about emotions,” Harry recalled. “Perfect. I was thoroughly inside out. Then I was peacefully numb.”
Suddenly his phone rang. It was Meghan on FaceTime. Harry answered and Meghan caught a glimpse of the “cartoon” in the background. “Are you watching cartoons?” she asked to which Harry replied, “No. I mean, yeah. Kinda. It’s … Inside Out?”
4. Prince Harry saved Prince William’s texts from a 2019 argument
Harry revealed he saved messages sent during a 2019 argument with the Prince of Wales. William, he explained, had been on a royal tour of Pakistan when he saw Harry had become emotional during a speech.
“He said I wasn’t well … He said again that I needed help,” Harry continued, noting the exchange became a three-day argument.
“I saved the texts,” he shared, saying he “still” has them and reads them “sometimes” with “sadness, with confusion, thinking: How did we ever get here?”
5. Harry kept a lock of Princess Diana’s hair on his nightstand
Elsewhere in Spare, Harry revealed he kept Diana’s hair on his nightstand at Nottingham Cottage. “I only kept a few things there, among them the blue box with my mother’s hair,” he wrote.
Lady Sarah McCorquodale, or Harry’s “aunt Sarah,” clipped locks of Diana’s hair following her death and gave them to William and Harry.
6. Prince Harry planned trips to the grocery store
“There was a supermarket by the Palace and I went there, casually, at least once a week,” Harry wrote in his memoir. He’d show up at “different times” wearing a disguise (baseball hat, baggy coat).
Then he’d “run along the aisles at warp speed, grabbing the salmon fillets I liked, the brand of yogurt I liked.(I’d memorized a map of the store.) Plus a few Granny Smith apples and bananas. And, of course, some crisps.”
Harry would then “sprint to the checkout,” with the entire outing taking 10 minutes.
7. Prince Harry watched people read and talk about him in the grocery store checkout line
In what he dubbed the “trickiest part” of grocery shopping — the checkout — Harry revealed he’d witnessed customers reading and “debating” about him.
“In 2015 I overheard them frequently discussing whether or not I’d ever marry,” he recalled. “Whether or not I was happy. Whether or not I might be gay.”
He continued, saying he “was always tempted to tap them on the shoulder … ‘Ello.’”
8. Prince Harry shopped T.J. Maxx’s sales for ‘everyday casual clothes’
Harry revealed in Spare he shopped for “everyday casual clothes” at T.K. Maxx, the U.K.’s version of discount retailer, T.J. Maxx.
His “system” was to “get to the shop 15 minutes before closing time” and “systematically working up one rack and down another.” He’d hold clothes up to his body never venturing inside a changing room before leaving “feeling triumphant.”
9. Prince Harry stopped going out in 2015
Social activities “stopped entirely” for Harry in 2015. “Every night I’d go straight home from work, eat over the sink, then catch up on paperwork, Friends on low in the background,” he wrote.
“After dinner I’d smoke a joint, trying to make sure the smoke didn’t waft into the garden of my neighbor, The Duke of Kent. Then I’d turn in early,” Harry continued.
“Solitary life. Strange life. I felt lonely, but lonely was better than panicky,” he explained. “I was just beginning to discover a few healthy remedies to my panic, but until I felt surer of them, until I felt on more solid ground, I was leaning on this one decidedly unhealthy remedy. Avoidance.”
